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IT students collaborate on real-world project

12 October, 2023

A team of Information Technology students has successfully completed a project that would allow St Pierre’s Sushi to print its labels onsite.

The project was completed by IT students Kazuhisa Kondo, Jack Lam, and Nischal Bhandari under the guidance of Lecturers Teong Tan (Boon) and Barry Dowdeswell.

The team created a label-printing system which can be operated by a tablet. Eventually, it should replace the need for hand-written labels.

Kazuhisa, who works part-time at St. Pierre's Sushi, says undertaking a real-world project for the company was a rewarding experience.

“One of the most enjoyable parts of the project was designing the system.”

He thought about what features would be best for himself and his colleagues and his team worked together to implement these.

“It was satisfying to see the visual elements take shape and become user-friendly,” says Kazuhisa.

He says he gained a lot of technical knowledge during the project including learning Android’s official programming language, Kotlin.

Jack says he enjoyed learning this new programming language collaboratively with his teammates and using it to build an application.

“The key thing I have learned is that communication is always the key when working in a team environment whether the person is your friend or your new classmate,” says Jack.

“Consistent communication throughout a collaborative project will always keep your team members happy and the project on track.”

The team says learning and utilising a new programming language and tools in such a short timeframe was tough. However, they were able to work together and help one another to overcome challenges.

The team had meetings with St. Pierre's once a week showing the company their progress, answering their questions, and making suggestions.

On Thursday 21 September, they presented their final project and gave a demonstration to stakeholders at St. Pierre's head office.

Lecturers said the students spoke clearly and were well-prepared and handled questions well.

They have now handed their project over to the company and hope it will help with their day-to-day operations.