Sparky Marky

This was my final year project, the brief was:
The computer labs in the School are an asset that we are keen to show off on open/visit days. This project proposes a network demonstrator. It will light the screen of a computer to indicate the machine is holding an imaginary ball. The ball is then passed around the lab, either randomly from one computer to another as in a game of catch, or more impressively from each computer to its neighbour so that it ‘snakes’ around the room. The snake approach will involve the system knowing about the spatial location of the machines in the lab.

Behind this demonstrator there can be a number of network principles at work. Control of the ball can be achieved either with a central master node keeping tabs on where the ball is or else a peer-to-peer approach may be used. Also, the network communication can either use point-to-point connections or may use a broadcast approach. The project may also demonstrate ‘fault-tolerance’ and be able to cope with a machine being absent from the game, e.g. by missing out the absent player.

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