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
Comparing Citizen Science observations and water quality data
Citizen science is a very valuable tool as it supplements existing data by obtaining data from a wider population and it also promotes science in a community. For this project, we could use data from a beach monitoring citizen science project and water quality obtained by a separate organization to analyze the trends between the citizen science observations and the water quality measurements taken over time. This would involve data analysis, perhaps making some maps, and likely a write-up of findings.
Biology, Engineering, Chemistry
The Real Life Theranos: Point-of-Care Diagnostics in Under 15 Minutes
Over 170 million cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed since the beginning of the pandemic. A particularly difficult challenge necessary for curbing the pandemic has been the rapid diagnosis of coronavirus in patients. In this project you will learn to compare the different methods used for coronavirus and how this can be applied to the field of molecular diagnostics. You will explore the steps invovled in creating fully integrated diagnostic devices and the cutting-edge research used to detect disease in under 15 minutes!
Engineering
Are Worker Ants Selfless? Exploring Altruism in Social Insects
What's in it for all the worker ants in a colony that are incapable of reproducing on their own? This project would explore altruism in ants or other social insects like bees and termites. You could dive deep into the inner workings of a colony, to discover what really goes on to maintain order and coordination.
Quantitative, Organizational Leadership
Designing Disease Treatments
Find a disease without a cure and design a potential drug treatment. Develop drug delivery vehicles such as microparticles, nanoparticles, and/or hydrogels to design disease treatments.
Chemistry, Math
Designing and Building a Miniature Solar-Powered Robotic Car
Field of Expertise: This project encompasses principles of mechanical engineering, robotics, and sustainable energy. It provides an opportunity for students to explore topics such as energy conversion, simple mechanical systems, basic robotics, and solar technology. Knowledge and Skills Gained: By the end of the project, students will have learned about the fundamental principles of mechanical engineering and robotics such as design processes, material selection, and basic electronic systems. They will also gain practical knowledge about sustainable energy sources, specifically solar power. Skills will include research, problem-solving, design thinking, basic coding for controlling robotic movements, and team collaboration. Information Gathering Process: 1. Begin with understanding the basics of mechanical engineering and robotics: mechanical systems, energy conversion, and basic electronics. 2. Dive deeper into the study of solar power: how it works, its efficiency, and how to effectively harness it for powering small vehicles. 3. Learn about microcontrollers and how they can be programmed to control motors and steer the robot car. 4. Investigate the principles of design and material selection that allow for efficient movement and power usage. 5. Look at examples of other solar-powered devices and vehicles for inspiration and understanding. Potential Student Outcomes: The main outcome of this project will be a working prototype of a miniature solar-powered robotic car. This prototype will be able to move and steer based on solar energy harnessed through a small solar panel. The students will also create a project report detailing their design process, challenges faced, solutions created, and lessons learned, which can be converted into a scientific research paper or a presentation. Furthermore, students could design a simple website or webpage that showcases their project, thus applying and developing some basic website design skills. This project not only gives students a tangible outcome that they can be proud of but also instills an understanding of the practical applications of sustainable energy and mechanical engineering. It encourages them to think creatively, work collaboratively, and engage hands-on with the material they are studying.
Engineering, Computer Science, Business
Creating Business Models with NFTs
NFTs enable true digital ownership of assets in digital worlds. However, NFTs have unique properties that make traditional business models difficult and enable capabilities that are not obvious at first glance. Explore the current application of NFTs (digital identity, metaverse, gaming, etc) and how they can be used in future use cases.
Engineering, Business
Does age impact symptoms of auto-immune disease?
Create a literature review aimed at understanding the impact age can have on auto-immune disease symptoms. Students will build skills reading scientific articles and summarizing findings from various sources. With this literature review, students can propose how we can enhance a patient's quality of life, based on their findings. They can make this proposal in a paper or other format, whichever they prefer.
Biotech, Biology
Electrifying ammonia synthesis
Ammonia is an important precursor for many chemical products, most notably fertilizers on which a huge portion of the human population depends. However, ammonia is currently produced via the Haber-Bosch process, which requires the burning of fossil fuels to sustain the elevated temperature of the reaction. Research and discuss sustainable alternatives to the Haber-Bosch process to produce ammonia that utilize renewable energy. Further discuss the feasibility of these alternatives and the research still required to implement them.
Engineering, Chemistry
Exploring Biomaterials for Women's Health Applications
I've worked on numerous projects related to women's health applications including drug delivery in ovarian cancer, breast cancer, and pregnancy. In these research spaces, there are always many questions about sex-based differences in drug delivery, how pregnancy can affect therapeutic interventions, and how to better design biomaterials for women's health. This project would look to explore the ongoing research related to biomaterials specifically utilized in women's health applications. The student can decide how to further narrow the topic depending on their interests (i.e., biomaterials for pregnancy, drug delivery in the female reproductive tract, etc). This work could focus on either preclinical or clinical research related to women's health as the student reviews current literature and/or clinical studies exploring this topic. The student could then create a written report with schematics-- a scientific review, commentary, or blogpost-- on the observed data and any emerging trends that seem relevant. The overall goals would be to get more comfortable finding and reading scientific articles and to practice summarizing these different sources cohesively.
Biotech, Biology, Engineering
Using machine learning to predict disease mortality rates from publicly available data and identify potential public health interventions
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) maintains a database of underlying causes of death for each state (CDC Wonder: https://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html). By gathering additional data about individual states (e.g. smoking rate, occupation distribution, education levels, sales of certain products, weather patterns, etc), we can develop a machine learning model to predict death rates for a specific disease (e.g. lung cancer) or multiple diseases. The US government maintains many databases containing variables that can be used as predictors. Following the development of a machine learning model, the student researcher can perform statistical analyses to identify important predictors of the disease and propose potential public health interventions to reduce disease incidence. Students pursuing a project of this type will learn how to access publicly available public health databases, develop machine learning models in Python, and perform statistical analyses to identify significant predictors of disease.
Biotech, Biology, Computer Science, Statistics
Signals on the Human Body
In this project, you will do a literature review to see what kinds of signals are being measured from the human body in routine clinical care, or promising ideas for new types of measurements. You will pick one (or two) and do a deeper dive on what that signal looks like, what it measures and how to extract meaningful information from it. For example, you can pick the electrocardiogram, and write a review on what doctors use it for, or build a device using components (like Arduino) on the web, or I can send you examples to analyze using Python or Matlab in some way.
AI/ML, Medicine
Life Cycle Design using 3D, 4D, and 5D Analysis
Select a infrastructure piece of your choice. We will use different civil / construction engineering software to identify, analyze, and propose solutions. For every session, we may focus on a unique aspect of the design or construction in chronological order that may include 3D modeling, 4D scheduling, or 5D estimations (note: software is available free of charge to students through Autodesk student licenses). Ultimately, we can compile these findings and pitch a mock project proposal presentation as a deliverable not limited to drawings, models, animations, and other components.
Engineering
The Evolution of Immunity
Write a research paper about the immune system, how it works, and how it evolved. This research paper could also talk about specific diseases and how they interact with the immune system. You could also do research about how your community perceives risks with respect to the immune system and different diseases.
Cancer
Bioinspiration: Do animals hold the answers?
Can the toxins frogs produce help us fight antibiotic resistant bacteria strains? How can understanding how lizards and newts regrow their limbs help us improve wound treatment? Why do tilapia skins help with burns? Discover the role of animals in the development of modern medicine as well as its potential. Share your findings in a research proposal, article, or presentation.
Biology, Cancer, Engineering, Chemistry
Self-Balancing Robot - Research, Analysis, and Engineering
The Star Wars droid D-0 is interesting because it is self-balancing. Creating a self-balancing robot like D-0 is a very educational project. You'll learn: Physics, linear dynamics and modeling, self-balancing control methods like the P.I.D controllers, embedded software engineering, electronic engineering. This project can be scaled according to your skills, ability, and resources. The final product is a combination of: 1. A report of the design, analysis, and modeling of the robot. 2. A software application to control the robot 3. A software simulation demonstrating virtual control of the robot 4. A hardware prototype platform demonstrating physical control of the robot 5. A physical robot created using motors, embedded processors, and sensors. The more of these tasks are performed, the more advanced the project. The following options are possible: Task 1: A beginner research paper. (No hardware investment) Task 1 - 3: An intermediate research paper and software application (No hardware investment) Task 1 - 4: An intermediate/advanced research paper, a software and hardware application. (Moderate hardware investment) Task 1 - 5: An advanced research paper, a software and hardware application, and final robot. (Moderate hardware investment)
Engineering, Computer Science, Math
Website Traffic Analysis
This project can involve the use of web analytics and data visualization. The students can gather data on website traffic, such as the number of visitors, the average time spent on the site, and the most popular pages, and use visualization tools, such as bar plots and pie charts, to explore the data. They can also use web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, to analyze patterns in website usage. Through this project, students can learn about web analytics and how to use data to optimize a website. They can also learn about data visualization and how to use visualizations to explore and communicate data.
Engineering, Math, Statistics
Pet genetic screening project:
There are many companies out there that will sequence your genome and tell you what genetic diseases you might be predisposed to. Then you might be able to make changes in your life (quit smoking, healthier diet) to lower your chances of getting this disease. But there's not very many companies that do the same thing for pets! We can build a computer program that takes in a cat's DNA sequence, and tells what genetic diseases they might be predisposed to. This would teach you 1) how to read and understand DNA sequences 2) how to write computer programs to parse DNA sequences and 3) what kind of mutations are relevant to disease.
AI/ML
Automatic Bird Identification using Deep Neural Networks
Imagine you were a conservationist who wanted to track the presence of specific types of birds in a given area. However, the birds are nocturnal or extremely rare, so they can hardly be caught by cameras. This project would enable wildlife researchers to identify bird species purely based sounds they make while chirping! Using deep learning, the goal of this project is to create a model which can accurately identify bird species based on audio signals alone.
Engineering, Computer Science, Math, AI/ML
Visualizing Density Gradients with Schlieren Photography
Density gradients that are invisible to the naked eye exist all around us. They scale all the way from shock waves coming off supersonic jets to the breath coming out of out mouths. Construct an experimental Schlieren setup to visualize and image this otherwise hidden phenomenon.
Physics, Engineering, Math
Characteristics of Biomaterials and their medical applications
Investigating the mechanical characteristics of certain biomaterials and researching ways in which these materials could be applied to medical applications. I have experience in both mechanical characterization and biomaterials and work with biomaterials in my research now. This topic could be investigated through journal research, resulting in a review article or a prototype could be created given the available resources.
Medicine
