the roamerI'm not up to date on recent Linear Algebra textbooks, but hey! Strang's book is uniquely beautiful, and uniquely effective in conveying deep structural insights elegantly and with concrete examples that stay with the reader. Perfect for a class setting, but also eminently suitable for self study. The right choice for your project! (imho)
Each field has a textbook that is accessible to inexperienced readers yet true to the deeper structures of the subject. That book ought to be written in every field, but in most fields it never is written. It requires a gifted author to come along and do the deed. Gilbert Strang's writing of his book was one of these special and rare events.
As it happens, linear algebra had another such event, a generation before Strang, in the shape of Paul Halmos's Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces. Another beauty, on the abstract side of the spectrum, and perhaps the perfect complement to Strang.