2,893 Inspirational Passion Project Ideas
Turn inspirations into your passion project.
This collection of project ideas, shared by Polygence mentors, is meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.
- AI/ML
- Animation
- Arts
- Biology
- Biotech
- Business
- Cancer
- Chemistry
- Cognitive
- Computer Science
- Creative Writing
- Dance
- Dentistry
- Economics
- Engineering
- Entomology
- Environmental Science
- Ethics
- Fashion
- Finance
- Game Design
- Healthcare
- History
- Illustration
- Languages
- Linguistics
- Literature
- Math
- Medicine
- Music
- Neuroscience
- Nutrition
- Organizational Leadership
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Photography
- Physics
- Psychiatry
- Psychology
- Public Health
- Quantitative
- Social
- Social Science
- Sports Analytics
- Statistics
- Surgery
Design a mobile app
In this project, you will design the user interface of a mobile app that could be anything from a messaging app to an augmented reality app. Throughout this project, you will learn how to design interfaces in a vector-based design tool called Figma and implement the principles of user design. By the end, you will have designed a complete app that, if handed off to an engineer, could be developed and put on the app store for people to use!
Music
Music Psychology and Cognition Research Paper
How does the human brain process music? Why do so many cultures feature music so predominantly? How does music engage our perception and what does it do to us? If you're interested in the intersection of music and perception, a research project on the topic of music cognition or music psychology would speak to these fascinations. In such a project, we would work together to narrow down on a particular music topic or question (ex. What is perfect pitch? What kinds of methods do music psychologists use? How does the brain handle rhythm?) and work to create a research paper or creative project around this line of inquiry.
Music, Psychology, Arts, Social Science, Cognitive
Memory and music
Write a review on how music affects our memory. Read studies done by neuroscientists about music and memory, and then compile them into a review article to submit to a middle/high school journal.
Music, Neuroscience, Ethics
Art Interpreting Art: Where One Medium Meets Another
Though my own work is mostly about the interface between music and literature, we can explore any kind of art that combines art forms, such as music and painting, painting and poetry, drama and music, and so for. The possibilities are endless!
Music, Philosophy, Linguistics
Riots, Parties, and Protests: Performative Strategies, Political Projects
How can theatre and performance help us understand the politics of protest? We'll use performance as a lens for digging into the strategies of political and social movements. We'll analyze how groups and individuals articulate their goals and use their bodies to disrupt and reimagine everyday spaces.
Music, Arts
Why Do the Arts Matter?
Why do the arts matter? Is there a correlation between progress in the arts and progress in society? What effects do the arts have on a community? Personal growth and development? Learning? In this project, students will consider the role of the arts not only in their lives, but in their community at large. Through research, students will present an argument for the arts in the format of their choosing.
Music
Mini-Musical
A short dramatic piece featuring original music and lyrics, about anything ranging from, say, a dinner date gone wrong to an epic period piece about the history of the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights. Whatever you're passionate about, let's musicalize it!
Music
5-10 Minute Play/Musical
Write a short piece for up to seven characters. Can be a one-act, or part of a larger concept. The complexity of the project is something we would work out together - your job is to dream big and let your imagination run wild, and my job is to help you figure out how to make it work. I like to think that anything is possible in the world of theatre, and it is not a question of "if," but rather a question of "how."
Music, Creative Writing, Illustration
Parent Evaluation of the UCLA TIES Infant Mental Health (IMH) program.
Develop an online parent survey as well as conduct qualitative interviews with referred foster/adoptive parents. The objective would be to obtain input from foster and adoptive parents participating in IMH to analyze the effectiveness of this program, perceptions of relationships with TIES, and if perceptions of relationships differed between families and UCLA TIES clinicians. The survey should include demographic and family history data that can be used to identify children that have been placed in care with higher risk factors (e.g., prior abusive history, number of placements, age of placement) who are statistically likely to experience emotional, social, and academic dysregulation in life. This evacuation is intended to be used to improve the quality of services received by adoptive/foster parents so that children placed in resource care are wholly supported.
Psychiatry, Music, Neuroscience, Social, Psychology, Social Science, Nutrition, Cognitive, Public Health, Organizational Leadership
A Collection of Creative Pieces
Could be a collection of poems that you'll have written by the end of the project timeline, short biographical segments paired with poems, an a capella rap "album". Emphasis on self expression.
Music, Biology, Creative Writing
"Research, Me-Search": Reading Ourselves Reading
One of the bravest and most honest things we can do as humanities scholars is to reflectively consider our own investments--personal, political, psychological, cultural--in the work that we do. This has been crucial to all of my own research, and we can work together to both reflect on and practice the concept with respect to anything in the humanities (literary or otherwise) that speaks to you.
Music, Philosophy, Linguistics
A Game Audio Project
In this project, you will use Construct 3 to create a simple game, and design the sounds and music for the experience. If there is a setting or world, that you have always dreamt about, I can help you bring that world to life through game and sound design.
Music
Student venture marketplace
Create an online marketplace for student entrepreneurs. This project involves designing and developing a website that provides a platform for high school students to showcase and sell their products or services.
Music, Arts, Business
Personalized Music Therapy
Our favorite streaming services use wealths of data to predict, suggest, and present music to us that we may be interested in. Even if these services know the music we use for our 'self-care' playlists, would a behavioral health specialist agree with what we listen to? This project would require establishing the impact music can have on mental health, and how a technology could be designed to support this impact while maintaining clinical expectations of good health and privacy.
Music, Public Health, Organizational Leadership
Can yeast tell the difference between real and fake sugar?
Can yeast reproduce in sugar substitutes? Let's find out! We can determine the amount of yeast reproduction by measuring CO2 output and see if fake sugars stack up to the real thing. Then, we can look at the molecules that make up the sugar substitutes and learn how the body would break them down. We can even find out which artificial sweetener tastes the sweetest by testing out what concentration it takes for someone to taste the sweetness and see if the sweetness correlates to the amount of yeast reproduction. Once the experiments are complete, we can write an article for a middle/high school journal detailing your results!
Music, Neuroscience, Ethics
Punk, Goth and Alt Influences on Building Community in Marginalized Populations.
This can be a podcast or presentation on the rising influence of alt lifestyles in building community and belonging in marginlaized communities. It can include interviews with current alt and goth artists and research on the healing powers of music.
Music, Psychology, Arts
College Audition Preparation
It's a big project! I'll help you prepare a well-rounded audition with appropriate materials so you can feel confident on your audition day.
Music
Computer Recognition of Directed Gestures
After spending a year in virtual classrooms, what are some of the small, nonverbal interactions you miss from in-person conversations? Eye contact & directed gestures are two modalities of communication we usually take for granted, but over Zoom, it can be very hard to tell to whom someone is waving or pointing. What if a computer vision system could help in determining & communicating this information? In this project, you can research methods in computer vision and machine learning that will allow for gesture recognition. Beginning from a standard desktop workstation, you can further experiment with your methods, extending to other poses and contexts.
Music, AI/ML
(Intermediate/Advanced) Efficacy of math education methods in different countries
Basically every country agrees that math is an important topic to study in schools, but how to go about teaching math differs wildly between all of them. This project would study different math teaching methods throughout a number of countries along with a specified parameter (such as test results, future academic success, research success, etc) to measure the efficiency of each method and what results each method provides. This could culminate in a paper, a podcast or other creative project, or a presentation.
Music, Math, Linguistics
The Effects of Music on Emotions
A research study on how different genres of music can affect emotions in a certain group of people (ex. careers, age, etc.)
Music, Dance, Arts
