Graduation Project - looking to continue

I worked on a project as part of my graduation credits last year. This project was on Ruby using Shoes. Essentially developed a simple winamp like media player with shoes. Even though now I am working as a software engineer with a company involving technology set very different from Ruby, I would like to pursue my graduation project and enhance and share as a open source project. What are my options? Can I do it while still working? I think should be fine since my day job is in an unrelated area. Do I need to inform my employer about it?