TechNovate Solutions Ltd: Tech Supplier in Manchester

Case Study

TechNovate Solutions Ltd. is a small but growing company based in Manchester, UK. They sell technology like laptops, printers, and cables to other local businesses and schools. Right now, the owner, Sarah, and her two employees track all their stock using paper notes and several different computer spreadsheets. This old-fashioned way of working is causing big problems. They often sell products they do not have in stock, or they cannot find a product when a customer needs it but they want to design various tools in the office by software engineers. They also design software for schools. The school are currently asking for few games for the kids, but Sarah cannot deliver it. This leads to unhappy customers and lost money. Sarah knows she needs a proper computer program to manage to design learning games but doesn’t know where to start.

She has hired you as a Junior Software Developer. Your first important job is to create a plan and a basic prototype for games or quizzes. You need to show Sarah how a computer program can solve her problems. You will do this by creating a presentation to explain your ideas, writing a technical report with some sample code, and finally, writing an evaluation that reviews your own work and suggests future improvements.

Your Tasks

Task 1:

For your first task, you need to explain the basic ideas to Sarah, who is not a technical expert. You will create a presentation with slides and notes. You need to clearly define what an algorithm is – a set of step-by-step instructions for the computer to follow. You should outline the process of how you will build the application, from having the initial idea to writing the code and making it run. To make it real for TechNovate, you must design simple algorithms for key actions, like bubble sort, strings modification, doing calculations, etc. You will also need to explain the different ways code can be structured, such as focusing on procedures (procedural) or objects (object-oriented), and recommend the best style for this project, using simple diagrams to help Sarah understand. You could consider various algorithms, flowcharts, pseudocode, and decision tree tables during this presentation.

Task 2:

Next, you will start building a small part of the game to prove it will work. Using a professional coding program like Visual Studio (an IDE), you will write the code for the algorithms you designed in Task 1. Your report must explain how you used the IDE’s special tools, like its debugger to find and fix errors, and how this was much easier than trying to write code in a simple text editor. You will also document a time you found a bug, or mistake, in your code and explain step-by-step how you used the IDE’s debugging tools to find it and make the program more reliable and secure. You should also be able to modify your game or quiz what you have designed.

Task 3:

Finally, you need to think critically about your work and its future. You will evaluate how efficient your algorithms are; for example, is your game attracting customers, are the search algorithm fast. You must also explain the coding rules you followed, such as how you named your variables and why having these consistent rules is so important, especially if other programmers need to work on the code later. Your report will finish with a justified recommendation for the next steps, suggesting what features to add next and what security considerations (like protecting customer data) the company must think about as they develop the full system. A comparison among individual coding, pair coding and team coding must be justified. This shows you cannot just code but also plan success of the project.