SwEng Industry Projects is a unique offering from the School of Computer Science & Statistics (SCSS) at Trinity College Dublin connecting future engineers with companies to work together on real-life industry projects proposed and mentored by our industry partners.
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Proposed by participating companies, the Software Engineering (SwEng) projects are a response to real-life industry needs and all have a significant software development aspect to them and are focused on building an end-to-end product employing software development and design principles common in industry such as DevSecOps, GitOps and automated tested.
The projects are undertaken by Year 2 and Year 3 undergraduates students at SCSS who gain hands-on experience working in collaboration with industry experts from the School’s industry partners panel who mentor the students during the project’s intensive 12-week lifespan. Project teams are a mix of second-year and third-year students from different degree courses creating a unique blend of knowledge and experience; mimicking real-life industry teams.
For the partner companies, who include Microsoft, IBM, Dell and Arista, the benefits are incalculable as it gives them unprecedented access to some of the country’s best young talent before they reach the recruitment market. It allows them to identify and mentor potential future employees and introduce them to the company’s culture and practices before they graduate into the workplace.
Because of the deep bonds created during the projects, many of the students who work on projects with industry partners go on to apply for internships and full-time employment at the company.
During the lifespan of the project, the companies act as the client and mentor the team, with structured and consistent support from the SCSS team. Industry mentors – at least two per project –meet their teams weekly for the duration of the project, guiding and advising the teams on technical, project management and team management aspects of the project. The best projects are showcased at the SwEng Industry Projects Awards; an annual prize-giving event.
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SwEng Industry Projects are a key component of the overall SwEng Industry Programme and the connections created between student and company can lead directly to internships which are put in place in Year 4 of the programme. The SwEng Industry programme was created by SCSS as a strategic solution designed to bridge the gap between academic and industry practice. Integrated into all Computer Science courses at SCSS, the programme’s aim is to produce industry-ready engineers who can seamlessly transition from university to the workplace and to forge links with industry partners who very often become their future employers.
The result of this unique programme — only available at the School of Computer Science & Statistics — is a win-win for both students and industry. Students get real and practical exposure to industry practice and are ‘industry ready’ by the time they graduate while companies get to build a recruitment pipeline of graduates who are already embedded into their corporate culture and practices.
*The development of SwEng has been partly funded by the HEA Human Capital Initiative, Pillar 3.
SwEng Industry Project Examples 2023
Project name: Analysing Open Source Community Dynamics
Project description: This project aims to analyse discussion dynamics in open-source communities. It analysed correlations between sentiment in comments in Github issues & pull requests.
Project name: Creating a Chess Game
Project description: The aim of this project was to create a chess game engine I.e. a program that can play chess against another human and machines. To do so the program had to know the rules of chess, understand the state of the chessboard and make moves that increases the chances of winning.
Project name: Interactive Real Time Mixed Reality Application for Hololens 2
Project description: The challenge for this project is to develop an interactive real time application that utilizes augmented reality technology. This could be a utility application, e.g. a navigation app that projects directions into the world around you. Or a game that takes advantage of HoloLens’ hand tracking and spatial awareness.
Project name: Sustainable Software
Project description: The carbon footprint of apps can be significantly reduced. The carbon cost of network traffic is measurable. A solution to measuring the energy use of a single app running on a desktop computer is sought. The project defines, implements, and tests a model for measuring power usage of a desktop app. This model is applied to a collaboration tool, the WebEx App, to measure energy use hotspots, and modify the app to reduce this.
Project name: Advances Analytics on Different Dimensions of Data Captured in Virtual Reality
Project description: This project was tasked with collecting advanced data analytics from a Unity VR program which we then displayed on a user-friendly dashboard using a series of graphs. Analysing huge volumes of data captured by the Avatar Academy Platform to figure out new ways to interpret data in order to get insights and improvements in user behaviour, user experience and environment settings that would not necessarily be available in traditional training environments.
Project name: Identifying the Location of Non-text Content (Images) in Documents using Machine Learning Techniques
Project description: The aim of the project was to identify the location of non-text content (Images) in documents using machines learning techniques. Optical Character Recognition is a well established area of research and development and provides great utility for companies to extract the text content from documents and images. But to work with this text content and present it back to users, for applications such as translation, users would like to see an approximation of the original document including all the non text components, including images and where they occur
Project name: Patient-Centric Question Answering System
Project description: The aim of this project is to develop a dashboard that summarises population characteristics through charts. Users interact with the app through Natural Language. Responses are provided in real-time and made available for download
Project name: WebGL game
Project description: The aim of this project is to create a WebGL game that will render in the browser using a HTML canvas, Javascript and the WebGL framework. Generate a game engine that will perform 2D transformations.
Project name: Smart Request/Order Routing Algorithm
Project description: The aim of this project was to implement a generic Smart Request / Order Routing Algorithm which can be used in various scenarios such as tech support ticket routing, order routing, distributed job scheduling or tele center routing. The routing logic should support parameters which in turn drive the routing. Example parameters can be personnel skills and experience with solving previous issues, etc. Imagine that a VIP customer submits an issue, and we have support personnel who know the issue inside out and have solved similar issues before.
Project name: Design an interactive chatbot
Project description: The aim of this project was to design an interactive chatbot to support students attending Trinity College Dublin to find suitable and affordable accommodation based on their needs, fast and efficient using Genesys Architect Platform. The target user is specifically students who study at Trinity College Dublin and/or are arriving as Erasmus Exchange Students or International Students.
Testimonials
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I’d just like to acknowledge the fantastic work done by the students over the last few months. Starting with almost a blank sheet with regard to Bots, the team demonstrated a real thirst for learning and hard work over the course of the engagement. The communication from the students was excellent. We met on a weekly basis, agreed on goals and deliverables for the upcoming week, and the team always delivered on those commitments. The quality of the work was top class, and they have proved out some concepts that I’m sure will be useful to Genesys in the future. In my view the team went above and beyond to deliver a fully functional Bot conversion tool. Personally I’m very impressed with the calibre of undergraduates on the SWENG course, and would certainly be open to participating in this program in future.
Senior Manager, Development - Genesys
As the projects are done and handed over, we wanted to express that we’re especially pleased with the group we had this year...The group put together such a complete effort in such a short amount of time, and with relatively little intervention on our part – they grasped and executed the requirements mostly independently, and the result is something that is actually useful to us.
Research Scientist - IBM Research Europe
Wonderful opportunity to be involved in the development of the next generation of software talent through the Sweng project! What a pleasure for Mersus Technologies. The students that worked with us demonstrated responsiveness, technical competence, and openness to learning throughout the project assigned to them. Very gratifying to observe the growth in their interpersonal skills and increased technical proficiencies over the weeks. They brought a renewed vigour to the team in Mersus. Congratulations to Trinity on the exceptional students they are cultivating and look forward to taking part next year.
Chief Operating Officer - Mersus Technologies