STONY BROOK, NY – On Friday, December 9, 2011, Stony Brook University students enrolled in the Department of Computer Science, “Principles of Database Systems” course (CSE 305) will have the opportunity to showcase their work to representatives of Google in a course project competition to develop a relational database system and corresponding web-based user interface for an online social networking system. The Google panel will decide which student-created project consists of the best overall social networking system.
As part of their curriculum to gain experience in the design and implementation of a database system, approximately 25 teams of students are developing fully-functional social networking database systems that resemble Google+ and Facebook. In the preliminary round which takes place from 9 am - 5 pm in the Advanced Programming Lab,.teams will demonstrate their system to Computer Science Professor, Scott Smolka, Richard McKenna and teaching assistants in the department. At 5 pm, six finalist teams will present 10-minute demos to Google software engineers, developers and recruiters who have come to Stony Brook from Google headquarters, specifically to judge this competition.
The panel of Google judges will select the best three projects and present the teams with award certificates. Members of the top overall team for the best social networking system will each receive a Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet computer compliments of Google.
"Each team will be judged according to the quality of the web-based user interface and their ability to implement several basic Google+ transactions, such as creating a circle, adding someone to a circle, posting to a circle and liking a post,” said Prof. Smolka. “Based on my experience with the course over the past six years, Google judges can expect to see well-designed systems created by very talented students.”
Picture from the Google vist to the Computer Science Class show members of the winning team "Lifeshare," Michael Gulak (sitting), Jason Macagnone and Tarasha Dewan, demonstrate to Google software engineers Manja Srinivasaiah and Jimmy Orr how their social network functions. Also present are Richard McKenna (far right) and Prof. Smolka (back).