Algo Senior Project Suggestions

Hi all,

I'm in a somewhat unusual predicament. I'm a student in my final year at the University of California Santa Barbara and my major is Computer Science. In CS we have an optional senior project which involves companies presenting projects they need completed, either as a proof of concept or production-grade system. Each year big name tech companies (Microsoft and the like) come in and present their projects. Groups of 4-5 students each choose which project they like the most and work for 5-6 months to complete it.

The option has always been open for teams to find/invite a not-already-participating company to provide them a project. I've always had an interest in algorithmic trading / quantitative finance and felt my love of low-level efficient programming would suite the industry well. I have a bit of experience trading and studying finance/economics as a hobby, one of my partners is a talented physics/CS double major with similar aspirations and the other two are highly competent and interested programmers (CS majors).

We've attempted to send emails out to various firms which engage in algorithmic trading and may have related projects but the responses so far have been sparse and disappointing (this was somewhat expected, the industry is quite secretive and hard to break into from my understanding). We don't mind doing a project for a start-up as long as the task is relevant to our interests, we're looking for experience and receive no compensation (I believe the school requires a small fee to keep the project going, but other than that, companies have nothing to lose).

Since we're running out of ideas and contacts, I'm posting here to ask if anyone has any ideas or suggestions moving forward? Thanks in advance for any helpful replies.

PS: I'm posting this under the jobs-related forum since that seems to be the most relevant category, hopefully that's alright.