Ask HN: Planned to code the summer away, stuck for ideas

[ceeK]

Hi folks!

I've currently just finished my third year of a four year MEng CS course. I had an internship last summer developing iOS apps and ended up feeling burned out at the end of this year so I decided to hack most of the summer away.

But I've got writer's block. I have no idea what to build, except that it has to be useful rather than a tech demo.

Any ideas, or advice?

[hath995]

Generally, I find programs that are useful to me are good places to start. Is this something that you do regularly that could be automated or generalized? I've made programs that help with my classes and sometimes even published them for the rest of the class to use. Is there anything aggravating and repetitive in your major that you think you or others would enjoy no longer dealing with?

Going in a different direction is there some technology that you know of but aren't too familiar with but might be useful later? Learn it by implementing something basic using it.