February 2002–January 2003
The Instant Sports Challenge project created an online instant matching and notification Web service (Champion Zone) to facilitate the instantaneous challenge and acceptance of tennis/squash matches. Future uses could include the beginning of term book exchange, notifications of class postings, discussion forum entries, and group project events. The service framework can be generalized to other 1-to-1 and 1-to-N relationships and become a campus-wide instant notification service.
To find a partner for a tennis game with Champion Zone, a user would input her skill level, her preferred court location, and the time and day she is looking for a game. When another person who is a good match signs on, the first user is notified. She then accepts or rejects, and the other user is immediately notified through his or her preferred method: AOL Instant Messenger, MSN® Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, e-mail, or cell phone.
The notification system has been written generally enough to communicate with various clients. The framework is also general enough that it could be used as a component in anything from a class information distribution to an online store, where people can request to be notified when new products meeting their specifications become available for sale.
Student Participants: Abel Sanchez, Hai Ning, Christopher Cassa, Matthew Notowidigdo, Daniel Robey