In the summer semester of 2025, students on the Bachelor's degree programme in Computer Science developed a prototype solution for a smart music playback system as part of the Software Engineering proseminar, which enables music to be controlled in different rooms both via a web application and using an IoT device in the individual rooms.
The challenge was to develop an overall solution for both corporate and private customers that allows music control in individual rooms as well as across multiple buildings, and covers various options such as time-controlled automatic playback, playlist mixing, and even an eco-mode in which playback is controlled in a specific room via detected movements and stopped again promptly in empty rooms.
The students implemented the GrooveTrail sensor stations using Arduino and various components such as a motion detector, a display and several buttons. Part of the application also runs on Raspberry Pis, which serve as local playback control centres and are intended to trigger time-controlled playback, for example. The software solution naturally includes a modern web application for configuring and managing the GrooveTrail system. In the web app, playlists can be created, rooms can be managed and time-controlled playback and modes such as eco or night mode can be set.
With GrooveTrail, the students realised a creative and technically demanding project that simulated real challenges from IoT and web development as well as project management in a practical way.
Proseminar Software Technology Price 2025
On Monday, 23 June 2025, the eight best student teams presented their software solutions to an expert jury. The jury not only assessed the project result, but also the overall project implementation. The overall assessment was made up of five categories: Software architecture, user interface, reliability of the IoT solution, software quality assurance and project management.
The jury, consisting of Dr Andreas Doblander (Dynatrace Austria GmbH), DI Hansjörg Haller and Marius Mössmer (Translogica GmbH), Benedikt Stricker and Georg Rinnhofer (World-Direct eBusiness Solutions GmbH), Dr Thomas Trojer (Txture GmbH) and Christoph Fröschl (INNIO Jenbacher GmbH), evaluated the projects and presented awards in the gold, silver and bronze categories. Of the eight competing teams, two teams were honoured with gold, two teams with silver and four teams with bronze. The jury particularly praised the high overall quality of this year's solutions.
