Interesting, glad I'm not alone here. We had a similar capstone for SE, mine was building out a scavenger hunt game in AR. That was pretty cool, even though, again, getting group members to contribute was difficult.
Hell I have gotten offers like this on a Discord bot, even. Wherever user data can be found, there are those who'd like to have their finger on the pulse
This shows poll results, namely the bit in the news paper they used for the headline, but not the actual question American's were asked that ended with "..amount spent for this purpose or not?" which is just as important as the data.
The problem is that Nintendo likes to play victim to piracy, surprising considering how their abandoned titles are kept alive by great folks who are only breathing new life into games that would otherwise be lost to time.
I'd really like to live in the timeline where Valve pushed it anyway and entertained a legal battle against Nintendo to keep emulators on the foreground of gaming.
I suppose this counts: Although not that interesting, I have one of those AC units in my apartment that sits on the floor with an outlet tube terminating at a window to pipe out hot air. The internal reservoir for this unit is quite small so I hacked together a float valve that triggers a pump to offload the condensation water to a larger bin, that way I don't have to empty the reservoir as often.
Pretty simple, but saves lots of time and I don't have to worry about the air conditioner turning off in the middle of the night due to it's internal reservoir becoming full.
I believe you're in the middle of two points, on one end, you don't want to write something trivial. On the other, you don't want to write something too new or cutting edge, as you're solo. Finding great projects to work on somewhere in the middle can be difficult.
I'd suggest that while you're finding your feet programming during this time, focus on software engineering, design patterns, and other SWE principles (SOLID for example).
As far as project ideas go, it really has to be something that aligns with your interest. I see you're aware of the suggestion "to build what (you) like." Your inexperience in this domain does not preclude you from building software adjacent to your personal hobbies.
I'll use myself and my own interests for example. I am a fan of the highest level of the US' legal system, the supreme court. I regularly listen to oral arguments presented before the court, along with keeping up with the SCOTUS via blogs and such. I can check to see if there is any public data available for me to play with, which there is. From there it's all about seeing what's available for me to use and coming up with a project idea using this resource.
I use this example to try and express that "what I like" does not have to pertain the software development discipline itself.
What I actually started with was video game modding for games I liked to play, along with Discord compiler, a project that allows folks to compile code on Discord. Both followed my interests pretty closely, both required lots of extracurricular learning.
> I would never do this in an actual product
what, why?