During my days in the college its was to program a game of "Life" using C, on a 640K memory PC running DOS. Who's "universal" is the biggest got the most marks.
Nowsaday the popular choice is to interface the PC wirelessly with a PIC/microcontroller which in turn interfaced to a GPS module to give the position data back to the PC. So someone can take the battery powered GPS module and go for a walk and a blinking spot then displays his location on a map of the college campus. Using a pair of walkie talkie, the location of person can be confirmed in real time if required.
Trust me, it makes for very good presentation when all the teacers/lecturers come to giving marks to your project.
And finally, if you can't pull it off, because you are lazy, time-pressed, have had too many beers, devoted most of your time to horticulture(grass, weed etc..), too many social evenings with your GF, then there are a thousand ways that you can cheat in a setup like that.