There are a number of possible projects that you may pursue based upon the preferences of your team. The first step you and your team must undertake is deciding what to make. Provided here are a few different examples that could be created. Note that the following rubric and example projects are not absolute and may be modified to fit each groups specific needs and project.

(THIS IS A JAVA PROJECT)

creating a successful and useful program

The program works as intended when turned in and fits the purpose well.

Efficient and stable running of the software (a calculator program that takes 10 minutes to add two single digit numbers would not satisfy this requirement).

Polish - little things that show that the project was well done and not rushed, including things like icons on buttons, error popups when used incorrectly, etc...

 difficulty and complexity.

If your group has any questions as to the difficulty, you are encouraged to ask me as it depends on the level of depth your group has decided to go to.

code readability and style (comments, descriptive variable names, separation of programming concerns).

novel, exceptional, or elegantly coded algorithms/sections of code.

The concept here is really subjective but for the most part I think you can understand - copy and paste hundreds of lines of code is bad

design

Separation of application logic and application graphics (data model should be separate from the view model).

Exceptional demonstration of Object Oriented Principles

Inheritance, Encapsulation (where appropriate) and Polymorphism.

Interfaces, abstract classes, classes, public, private, etc...

Reusability - if you use appropriate OOP then this requirement will be satisfied naturally

instructions indicating how to use your software. Possibly adding a help feature or some kind that at least describes the basic workings of your software.

Error and Exception handling - any possible input should be handled and erroneous inputs should be explained to the user.

teamwork - you will indicate this during your post-mortem (anyone who does not turn in a post-mortem will receive a zero in this area).

Other - this could be anything from web support to database/file integration.

Everything has to have a theme these days

The theme for this project will be editors of some kind. An editor is a piece of software that lets you manipulate data. This is both crucial for art work (images, sound, movies) but also for games (map editors, story editors, gameplay editors, IDEs (code editors)). Your job will be to create an editor of some kind. For more flushed out examples see below:

Photo editor: This should allow the user to read in an image of several different types and allow the user to manipulate them. This includes everything from drawing lines and setting colors, but should support features like zooming in and out, cutting and pasting sections (rectangles) of the image, and saving final products. Things like brushes and stroke manipulators can be considered as well. For an example see MSPaint or Photoshop.

Story/Conversation editor: This lets a writer script out a story or conversation with the reader/player. It should graphical and allow the author to define starting and ending points of the story, user decisions (branching paths), variables (remember how many times someone has said or asked something) and linkages from one story to the next. For a professional example see Twine (http://twinery.org/).

Game/Map Editor: Few professional games can be created without proprietary editing software. Here you get to define the data for a game (map information like obstacles and collision, enemies, level transitions etc...) and create a GUI tool for specifying it all in a file. Some consideration should be added for how a story/conversation system will work or be added in (and there could even be some collaboration with another group who works on that separate system).

Sound/wave file editor: This might be a bit more difficult but there are plenty of operations that can be done to a sound file including: cutting and pasting parts, editing volume or pitch, adding tracks or notes, or even generating tracks from scratch using some form of music notation.

City planner: Sim city without the fun - or this is your project add some simulation in it to make it more interesting. Adding different types of roads (connecting them) and buildings as well as resources. This can be technical, on the level of a cad program, or less precise in terms of the level of detail.

An IDE (integrated development environment): This is simply a text editor with additional features. Go to definition, comment/uncomment lines, compile (show errors) and run a file, etc...

Other examples in a similar area of interest could be:
File Security System: add and remove files to the system through a GUI. The system encrypts the files and stores them for later retrieval. There should be ways of editing and viewing files through the system (without having to save them out).