Create a functional design for your project. We would recommend it be a (web)app with a graphical user interface. Alternatively, you may also propose substantial changes to an existing functional design or product. Make sure you execute the full design process though. Talk to a teacher in case of doubt.

The Functional Design has two goals: it convinces a non-technical stakeholder that the solution fits the needs of its users, and it is detailed enough for a developer to implement the user-facing behavior without further clarification from the author.

Your grade will be determined by the following aspects:

• Clearly define what problem your project solves and in which context.
• The domain in which you operate is clearly defined, for example in the form of an ERD.
• You describe how your project solves the problem using techniques like behavior descriptions, wireframes, flowcharts or anything else you find useful.
• You validate your design with either the client and/or some of your intended end-users, and describe what you do with the results of this validation.
• You deliver a document that has a professional writing style.
• Your document reaches the two goals described above.

Your exported PDF for this document is at most 10 pages. Not meeting this standard automatically fails your project.

Create a technical design for your project. Alternatively, you may also propose substantial changes to an existing system. In that case, you should start by carefully modeling the existing system, and then execute all design steps for making your changes on top of that. Talk to a teacher in case of doubt.

The Technical Design gives a developer everything they need to understand the system and implement it, without requiring further clarification from the author.

Your grade will be determined by the following aspects:

• It gives a complete and precise overview of all components, connections and responsibilities (for example in the form of a C4 level 2 model).
• All key decisions follow a clear reasoning process. For example, your technology, framework and architectural choices.
• A clear description of how the security between parts of your system is handled and what design choices would change if extreme scalability and reliability were important concerns.
• Coherence with your Functional Design
• You deliver a document that has a professional writing style.
• Whether another developer could implement this system fully without any further clarification.

Your exported PDF for this document is at most 10 pages. Not meeting this standard automatically fails your project.

Solve a technical problem to which the solution is not obvious to an experienced developer (like a teacher). This should usually be the hardest and/or most uncertain part of your project.

The document you deliver here proves that this part of the project is indeed solvable, by building a prototype and critically evaluating whether it meets the goal.

Your grade will be determined by the following aspects:

• A clear definition of the problem and what success looks like. What would be a good outcome of this research?
• Thorough research into solutions for this problem, including references to resources you have consulted and clear pros and cons for several options.
• Your motivated decision on which one(s) of these to experiment with or prototype on.
• A description of your experiments or prototype, including any source code and output data for the above.
• Whether your results are easily reproducible by another developer, even when parameters change slightly.
• A critical (if possible numerically supported) analysis of your solution's fitness. For example in terms of time and/or space complexity, or in terms of meeting some specific goal.
• Coherence with your Functional and Technical Design
• You deliver a document that has a professional writing style.
• Whether your problem, experiment and conclusion clearly match each other, and whether all the steps involved are thoroughly described.

Your exported PDF for this document is at most 10 pages. Not meeting this standard automatically fails your project.

Having all documentation in PDF format is a precondition for receiving a graduation grade.

Although Markdown is convenient for software developers, it requires special tools to view them properly, especially when using advanced features like embedded PlantUML. As this report will become part of your graduation dossier, we ask you to please create a companion .pdf for each .md in your portfolio repository.

The 10-page limit for each stage is measured on this exported PDF, not on the Markdown source (which has no pages of its own).

You can do this using the Markdown Preview Enhanced VSCode extension by:

• Opening the .md file.
• Showing the preview panel for it (using ctrl-k v).
• Right-clicking on the preview panel and selecting Export --> Chrome (Puppeteer) --> PDF.

In order to pass the graduation project, there are two hard requirements you have to fulfill:

• Each of the three stages (Functional design, Technical design and Problem solving) needs at least 50% of its available points. Your final grade is the average of the three stages. A high average cannot make up for a single stage below 50%.
• Your exported PDF for each of the sections can be no longer than 10 pages. If you use more space, you automatically fail the project.

If you have not passed one of the three stages you will need to do the short retake (of three weeks). If none of the stages reached 50% of their available points then you will need to start a new project for your retake. In other cases where you did not pass the project the examiners will determine which of the two retake options you will need to do.