Campus Lost and Found with Visual Search
A lost property system where someone who has lost an item describes it in words and is shown visually similar found items, rather than scrolling a list. A modest, finishable project that still contains a genuine retrieval component.
Beginner
Achievable by one student in a semester with familiar tools.1 semester, 1 to 2 students
5 to ship
3 optional extrasSuggested stack
What you should ship
- Found item submission with photograph, category, location and date
- Image embedding pipeline with vectors stored alongside item records
- Text to image search returning ranked visual matches for a written description
- Claim workflow with a verifying question the true owner should be able to answer
- Retrieval evaluation on at least 50 lost and found pairs, reporting how often the correct item appears in the top five
If you have time left
- Photograph based search for people who have a picture of the lost item
- Automatic notification when a newly submitted item matches an open lost report
- Retention policy that archives unclaimed items after a defined period
The problem
Campus lost property is a cupboard and a spreadsheet. Someone who has lost a set of keys has no way to search except asking, and staff have no way to match a description to a box of items.
What you build
Item submission, image embedding, text to image search, and a claim process that verifies ownership.
Why this is a good smaller project
It is honestly scoped for one or two students, every deliverable is achievable, and the retrieval component is real rather than decorative. Finishing a well made system beats submitting a half built ambitious one, and this can be finished.
The interesting component
Searching images by text description without training anything. An off the shelf joint image and text embedding model lets a query like black umbrella with a wooden handle rank photographs sensibly. Building an evaluation for it, with real lost and found pairs, is what turns a demonstration into a measured result.
The design detail worth getting right
Verification. Anyone can claim an item they have seen in a public list. Requiring the claimant to answer a question only the owner would know, recorded by staff when the item was logged, is a small feature that makes the system trustworthy.
Scope warning
Do not add messaging, accounts for every student, or a mobile application. One web interface, staff and public views, done properly.
Ideas and guidance, not finished projects
These are project ideas and scoping guidance, published free for students to use as a starting point. I do not build, write, or sell final-year projects, and I do not complete coursework for anyone. Take an idea, make it yours, and build it.
Not sure this one fits you?
I help students pick an idea that matches their skills and their deadline, then scope it down until it is finishable. Guidance only, never done for you.
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