Week 24: Capstone Project (Expert)

Overview

Week 24 is dedicated to building a comprehensive capstone project that integrates multiple advanced Rust concepts you’ve learned throughout the course. This project-focused week allows you to apply your expertise in a realistic, complex system that demonstrates your mastery of Rust at an expert level.

Project Options

Option 1: High-performance Distributed Database

Description: Build a distributed key-value store with strong consistency guarantees, focusing on performance, reliability, and scalability.

Key Features:

  • Distributed consensus (Raft or Paxos algorithm)
  • Custom storage engine with memory-optimized data structures
  • Lock-free concurrent access patterns
  • Network protocol with efficient serialization
  • Async I/O for maximum throughput
  • Configurable consistency levels
  • Automatic sharding and replication
  • Fault tolerance and recovery mechanisms
  • Monitoring and observability

Technologies and Concepts:

  • Advanced concurrency (Week 23)
  • Custom synchronization primitives
  • Lock-free data structures
  • Async runtime (Tokio)
  • Memory optimization techniques (Week 21)
  • SIMD acceleration for specific operations (Week 20)
  • WebAssembly for admin interface (Week 22)
  • Benchmarking and profiling (Week 19)

Option 2: Real-time Data Processing Pipeline

Description: Create a high-throughput, low-latency data processing system capable of ingesting, transforming, and analyzing streaming data in real-time.

Key Features:

  • Pluggable sources and sinks
  • Stream processing operators
  • Windowing and aggregations
  • Backpressure management
  • Exactly-once processing semantics
  • Fault tolerance with checkpointing
  • Custom memory management for data buffers
  • Dynamic scaling capabilities
  • Processing graph visualization

Technologies and Concepts:

  • Stream processing patterns
  • Memory-mapped I/O (Week 17)
  • Custom allocators (Week 13)
  • Parallel computation with Rayon (Week 20)
  • Lock-free data structures
  • Async processing for I/O bound operations
  • Profiling and optimization techniques
  • Type state programming for pipeline configuration

Option 3: Embedded Real-time Operating System

Description: Develop a minimal, real-time operating system for embedded devices with predictable scheduling, memory management, and device drivers.

Key Features:

  • Task scheduler with priority-based preemption
  • Memory allocator for constrained environments
  • Device driver framework
  • Interrupt handling
  • Inter-process communication
  • Power management
  • File system support
  • Networking stack (optional)
  • Shell interface

Technologies and Concepts:

  • No-std Rust (Week 18)
  • Low-level programming (Week 17)
  • Custom synchronization primitives
  • Memory management (Week 13)
  • FFI for hardware access (Week 16)
  • Inline assembly for critical sections (Week 17)
  • Type-level state machines (Week 15)
  • Advanced optimization techniques (Week 21)

Option 4: WebAssembly-based Collaborative Application

Description: Build a collaborative application (document editor, whiteboard, etc.) that runs in the browser using Rust compiled to WebAssembly, with real-time synchronization and offline capabilities.

Key Features:

  • Real-time collaboration with CRDT data structures
  • Offline-first capabilities with local-first data
  • Responsive UI with a Rust frontend framework
  • Rust backend for API and synchronization
  • End-to-end encryption
  • Optimistic UI updates
  • History and versioning
  • Rich media support

Technologies and Concepts:

  • WebAssembly and wasm-bindgen (Week 22)
  • Full-stack Rust development
  • Custom CRDT implementation
  • Advanced concurrency patterns
  • Memory optimization for browser environment
  • Lock-free data structures
  • WebAssembly threading (if supported)
  • SIMD acceleration for specific operations

Project Development Timeline

Days 1-2: Project Planning and Setup

  • Choose one project option or propose your own
  • Define detailed requirements and specifications
  • Design system architecture
  • Create technical design documents
  • Set up project repository
  • Configure CI/CD pipeline
  • Create initial project structure
  • Define interfaces between components

Days 3-6: Core Implementation

  • Implement the fundamental components
  • Develop core algorithms and data structures
  • Build out the primary functionality
  • Implement any custom memory management
  • Create concurrent/parallel processing mechanisms
  • Establish error handling and logging
  • Implement initial testing framework
  • Design benchmarking approach

Day 7: Integration, Testing, and Documentation

  • Integrate all components
  • Comprehensive testing
  • Performance benchmarking
  • Documentation
  • Deployment strategy
  • Final presentation of project

Evaluation Criteria

Your capstone project will be evaluated based on:

  1. Technical Depth - Appropriate use of advanced Rust features and patterns
  2. Code Quality - Clean, maintainable, and well-structured code
  3. Performance - Efficient resource usage and appropriate optimizations
  4. Robustness - Error handling, edge cases, and graceful degradation
  5. Documentation - Clear explanations of design decisions and usage
  6. Testing - Comprehensive test coverage with unit and integration tests
  7. Innovation - Creative solutions to complex problems

Resources

Conclusion

This capstone project represents the culmination of your Rust learning journey. By successfully completing it, you’ll demonstrate expert-level Rust skills and create a substantial portfolio piece that showcases your ability to design and implement complex systems in Rust. The project should integrate multiple advanced concepts from the course and solve real-world problems with elegant, efficient Rust code.