Programming Project

long time lurker, first time poster here.

I've been programming Java for about 2 years now, trying to learn it outside of school with Java in a Nutshell as well. We now need to choose a larger-scale project to do in Java that we will be doing from now until the end of the school year, but we can pick any kind of project as long as we can complete it in the alloted time.

What are some suggestions? Anything that could teach me more about the functionality and maybe everyday usefulness of Java would be great (so I could learn more about Java and programming in general). Any resources you might be able to point me to (considering I'm guessing many of you would suggest making a game of some sort or GUI design) would be great.

Yes, I could contribute to an open source project.

I have actually thought about contributing for a while, but I've never done it before and have no idea how to start and help out.

Also, could I get some actually relevant suggestions for good Open Source projects I could work on to learn more about Java (if the server thing is as dumb as you guys are saying)? Something that I could actually feasibly accomplish at this stage in my learning would be nice too, though I'd like to learn more in the process of course (the whole point).