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.

Check out some projects

Solo Performance/Acting Monologues

Creating a solo piece of video, theatre or performance art based on a conceptual idea that explores a personal, social or political subject. The process of the project can be based in writing or on research into any type of source material. This type of project could be helpful to anyone wanting to audition, build an artistic portfolio or applying for grants and scholarships or fellowship in film, theatre, performance or new media arts.

Dance, Photography, Creative Writing

Sami

Produce Your Own Short Film

Write, direct, and film a short film. Revise your script to follow the Aristotelian story structure. Work with friends and peers to act in your film. Create a shot list and storyboard of the film. Go out and film it.

Photography

Alicia

Create a magazine of your photos and writing work

Learn to take photos and compile them in a magazine from start to finish. Whether you have photos ready to be edited or you are picking up a camera for the first time, we can use graphic design and photography to create a magazine or organized creative portfolio showing off your work.

Photography, Social Science, Statistics

Gabriel

Simulation Projects with Robotics

Simulation technology has drastically changed our ability to work with technical systems that aren't physically in front of us. Namely, robotics simulation technology has become increasingly advanced. We will leverage tools from major companies like Google and Amazon to tackle questions in robotics all in simulation!

Biology, Philosophy, Engineering, Computer Science, Photography

Henry

Molecular Toolbox

The creation of novel therapies and drugs in today's world leverages numerous technologies that span an array of disciplines including techniques in organic synthesis, protein engineering, biosynthetic chemistry, and cell engineering. We will select and review the literature on 1-2 methods from this vast sea of technologies and write a review article on the subject.

Cancer, Neuroscience, Engineering, Photography, Chemistry

Austin

Use a public dataset to test a theory and learn how to analyze social data

Using publicly available datasets like the GSS (General Social Survey), we can learn how to manage, clean, and prepare data for analysis. Once we formulate a research question and theory of interest (e.g., how have relationships and social support changed since before and after the pandemic?), we will use these datasets to analyze and interpret the results. Once complete, students will have an understanding of how to use applied statistical method(s) to test a research question and theory relevant to their interests.

Photography, Social Science, Statistics

Gabriel

Contribute to your favorite open source project

Contribute a feature or bug fix to your favorite open source project, such as: * Gimp (https://developer.gimp.org/core/submit-patch/) * Darktable (https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/wiki/Getting-started) * Organic Maps: https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps#contributing * VLC (https://www.videolan.org/developers/) * OBS (https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.rst) * Signal (https://github.com/signalapp) There are a nearly endless supply of amazing open source projects, each with their own impressively long list of feature requests (and bug reports!). Contributing to any of these projects, in addition to being satisfying on a personal level, will make you a better engineer and give you skills that are highly sought after by employers (open source contributions look fantastic on a resume).

Photography

Chris

How to Make Good Pictures

What makes a "good" photograph? In this project, we'll learn about the history of photographic style and explore how new technologies and platforms from the 35mm camera to TikTok have changed how people make and share content. The final product could be an extended instagram story, a photo/fashion blog, or a portfolio for college apps or AP exams.

Photography

George Philip

Historical Dinner Parties

Using online research tools (like the New York Public Library's archive of historical menus, for example), you'll develop a series of historically-accurate dinner parties for your friends and family. You'll research food and culinary histories to source recipes, plan menus, and write descriptions that help to set the scene. Specific details about class, climate, traditions, and trade routes (among other considerations) will help your guests imagine how it might've felt to share a meal together in specific parts of the world, at specific points in time.

Photography

Anna

Publish your own Android app

Build a mobile app, the Google Play Store, F-Droid (https://f-droid.org/en/) or one of many alternative Android app stores. You'll learn a lot building your app, and might even make some money!

Photography

Chris

Research into Performance Techniques

Help in writing a research paper and analysis on techniques and traditions used in acting, dance, performance, and film/video. The paper can be conceptual and/or theoretical, with possible case studies as examples.

Dance, Photography, Creative Writing

Sami

Open Source Adventure Course

Make a game that teaches the player to program/teaches them various algorithms. For example, the player could use basic flow of control to solve puzzles/riddles, defeat enemies by implementing a sorting algorithm that works faster than theirs, or race through a world using an algorithm such as A* to plot their course.. Publish the game under and open source license so anyone can add puzzles, levels, worlds, etc.

Photography

Chris

Investigation on Acting Methodologies

Compare the acting methodologies of Stanislavski, Meisner, and the Method technique. Learn the different tools and resources for each technique. Choose a monologue and research how you would prepare to deliver the monologue using each technique.

Photography

Alicia

Narrative Tour

Pick a place, this can be your hometown or somewhere you have never been to before (use Google Streetview), use media and writing to represent a walking tour that traverses through an interesting part of the city. Notice buildings, infrastructure, shops public art, and public life. How would you talk about their significance to you or to others? This exercise involves using media to represent the built environment and using narrative to reveal the culture and history embedded in the built environment.

Photography, Illustration

Alice Jia Li

Photography and the Sites of Civil Rights

Recording history is a complex process, but sometimes a single image captures the mood of an entire era. In this project, you'll explore flashpoints in Civil Rights photography, ranging from 1960s era images by James Karales and Gordon Parks to contemporary photographs of Black Lives Matter protests by Philip Montgomery and Alexis Hunley. Reading newspapers, literature, and laws from these periods will contextualize specific events and the shockwaves they sent through American society. Your capstone for this project would be an online exhibition built on an open source platform like ArcGIS Storymaps. You'll compose short historical and interpretive essays on significant photographs and how they help to change opinions about race in America.

Photography

George Philip

Synthesis Paper

In this project, you would choose 2-3 articles on a topic of your choice to study and compare. This paper would explain, compare, contrast, and offer your conclusion on the different approaches. You will develop your professional and scientific writing skills, research skills, as well as understanding and finding reliable sources. Topics could be anything from "Organic vs. Artificial heart valves" to "How the Grimm's Fairytales Changed Over Time".

Biology, Arts, Photography, Chemistry, Math

Gillian

What Is The Carnivore Diet?

There has been a recent interest in the 'carnivore' diet - a diet consisting of consumption of purely meat-based products and meat - which has been anecdotally successful at treating patients with immune disorders. Clinical studies on the carnivore diet's impact on longevity, health, and other metrics have been few however. Is it a fad? Or is there a key insight about it that could be beneficial for those looking to improve their health? Learn how to design a clinical trial to test the impact of nutrition on human health through this 'tasty' project!

Neuroscience, Computer Science, Photography, Chemistry, Math, Business

Steven

Photo Ethnography of Places

In this project you will be able to tell the story of a place in your own city or town --a museum, a zoo, a park, a cafe, a music store, a forest, a library, etc. Relying on the pictures you take of that place, you will be able to tell others why this location is important for your or your community and to begin to understand the many social forces that converge in this spot which, after all, make it a socially constructed and mediated terrain.

Literature, Photography, Creative Writing

Magdalena

Creating a short narrative film with visual effects for TikTok or YouTube

Using a combination of programs and applications from the Adobe Suite (e.g., Premiere Pro and After Effects), we can brainstorm, write, film, and edit a short narrative film to help grow your understanding and knowledge of visual storytelling and editing. This could include creating a short film (one to three minutes) from start to finish, or taking an idea for animation or visual effects and working our way through it. By the end of the project, you'll understand the adobe filmmaking and video editing workflow and will be able to take your ideas to the screen with future projects.

Photography, Social Science, Statistics

Gabriel

Narrating a Life

Is there anybody in your family, your neighborhood, your church or your school whose life or work inspires you? Based on digital ethnographic methods and with the aim to write a testimonial, in this project you will be able to delve into the lives of people from your community that spark your interest. While Covid-19 is still out there, technology offers plenty of resources to tell the stories of people whose lives are compelling to you.

Literature, Photography, Creative Writing

Magdalena