Every year some of the senior design projects require the use of COM in one way or another. There are a variety of tools and languages out there that have this capability, but most of the time the basis of choice is simply a matter of taste. Our goal is to test a variety of tools and try and determine which one is best for the needs of a senior design project. What we mean by 'best' is a combination of several things: ease of use, time to learn, and scalability.