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

Create a prototype Game!

For this project, I will work with you to bring your idea for a game to fruition. I can teach you the fundamentals for game design, how to appropriately scope a game project and work with game engines to develop the application. I can also teach some fundamentals of game art and code, and help you to create something that is portfolio ready for your personal website.

History, Game Design

William

U.S. Social Movements

In this research project, students will explore one or more social movements in nineteenth or twentieth-century U.S. history. Students may choose to focus on significant civil rights movements, such as women's rights and feminism or the fights against racial segregation and disenfranchisement, the Chicano Movement, or the American Indian Movement. Or, students may choose to focus on other institutional reform movements, such as antislavery and abolitionism or educational or prison reform. Students may also be interested in exploring a multitude of other important social and moral reform movements including temperance and prohibition, dietary reform and/or animal rights movements, environmentalism and conservation, or conservatism and progressivism.

History, Social Science

J.T.

Environmental Impacts of ChatGPT & AI Technologies

In this project, students will create a research paper, poster presentation, or visual essay that asks: what are the environmental impacts of advanced computing, including new AI technologies like ChatGPT? Drawing on academic research papers, journalistic articles, and environmental impact studies students will learn about the environmental consequences of various dimensions of computing, datacenters, and/or the manufacture of hardware. Together, we will explore the physicality of the "Cloud."

History, Social Science

Kristen

What Can fMRI Tell Us About the Brain?

In the mind sciences, the use of fMRI in research is ubiquitous. Not only is it a noninvasive and fairly cost-effective research technique, but it allows us to see large scale functional connectivity between brain regions whose observation would escape more invasive techniques. On the other hand, fMRI suffers from numerous issues in collecting and interpreting the data it generates. In this project, we can explore how fMRI works in detail, generating a paper at the end that explores, in philosophical and scientific detail, the epistemology and methodology of fMRI research with an eye towards evaluating currently existing fMRI studies.

Philosophy, Neuroscience, History, Literature

Jake

Contemporary Connections to Historical Themes

One of the most exciting things about history is making connections between historical research and our present moment. These kinds of connections are important not only in traditional academic writing, but also in journalistic pursuits as well. Together we could delve into archival sources to uncover historical trends and phenomena, and connect them to present day events and trends. These connections can be explored in a traditional academic paper, or be used as the basis for a podcast series, social media project, or digital archive. An online exhibit, social media page dedicated to a concrete theme, or even a news article or an op-ed would be a fun project that we can work to develop together.

History

Alexandra

Disaster Resilience and Your Area

A project focused on local community resilience in your home, this research will map out community vulnerability, assets, and help to build a disaster preparedness plan that can help make my community more prepared for climate change hazards.

History, Languages, Environmental Science, Social Science, Nutrition

Claire

General Law

Any project associated with any legal topic (Criminal Law, Contracts, Civil Procedure, etc...)

History

Rebecca

Formula 1

Formula 1 is one of the most highly watched sports in the world. Extreme precision, high accuracy and excellent teamwork are the key constituents for a team to participate and win the grand prix. The moment anyone decides to act on their own, the team can either lose position or straight away get out of the competition. All the major teams like Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, Redbull, Alpine, Aston Martin, Haas, Alfa Romeo and Alpha Tauri are the world championship contenders. As a data enthusiast and a former Formula 1 prospect driver, I thought why not create a simple project to analyze an F1 dataset with data attributes like drivers, races, lap times, seasons data, pitstop status and other related attributes.

History, Engineering, Computer Science, Business

Thomas

Cracking a Case Study

Graphic design involves a lot of creative leaps from start to finish, but it's not just the final draft that matters - clients and employers want to see your thinking throughout the process. This project starts with a finished design and asks you to retrace your steps, writing out your design reasoning, branding choices, visual research inspirations, accessibility audits, and alternate options. How can you craft a narrative that supports your work?

Arts, History

Patrick

Building Food Justice

This research will focus on the concept of food justice in a theoretical and practical sense. This could involve a gender or racial justice focus, for example. We could focus on a specific area or type of producer.and will then examine how different policy or political changes can improve the nutritional security of households.

History, Languages, Environmental Science, Social Science, Nutrition

Claire

Self-Expression Through Artistic Means

Painting, drawing, collage, sewing, writing, weaving, crochet, rug making, furniture painting, and cooking all all things I love to do. How do and how can we express ourselves through artistic means.

Arts, History, Fashion

Desira

Historical Overview on American Schools

Did you know that America’s education system is not an accident? It was purposefully structured to succeed specific groups of people. In this project you will research the origins of US schools leading to its current situation. Drawing upon politics including landmark court cases and foreign policy, you will investigate how education has changed throughout history and what inequalities persist. You will read academic articles and journals to assess how education today is set in place by structures and systems.

Psychology, History, Literature, Languages

Lydia

Religious Pluralism Blog

Curious about how religions are formed, how the grow, and how they influence cultures, start wars, change history? Dive into the background and theory behind a variety of religions and create a multimedia blog to help educate others.

Arts, History, Languages, Social Science

Rose

Music evolution through the decades: Analyzing the history of your favorite music genre

Students could pick their favorite genre of music, for example Hip-Hop, Jazz, Rap, RnB, etc., and learn about the history of this genre, including key artists who influenced the genre, cities where the genre was developed, and different styles and phases the genre went through. Students could analyze different societal factors, like political climate, racial tension and community structures, that impacted music production during each time period. The student would have the opportunity to pick the genre, decide what elements of the genre to focus on analyzing, and put their research together in a unique artistic representation (website, blog, social media account, collage).

Psychology, Arts, History, Literature, Social Science, Organizational Leadership

Mimi

Has Economic Inequality Transformed Innovation?

Historically, innovation in the consumer goods space has led to two beneficial outcomes for consumers: (1) an improvement in product features and (2) a reduction in product prices. In this paper, we argue that the increased concentration of wealth over the last 50 years in the US has shifted the benefits of innovation away from (2) by disincentivizing firms from focusing on price reductions as a means to achieve growth. To support this argument, we use the profit pool model and analyze the available profit pool by price point for a selection of consumer goods and electronics.

History, Languages, Sports Analytics, Economics, Business

Joseph

A Girl in Haarlem

My student wrote a five-act play based on the 80 years Dutch Wars of Independence.

History, Creative Writing

Elizabeth

Old Stuff Still Matters!

Show in essay, audio, or visual form how the world we live in is shaped by the poetry you find the most beautiful or the past events you think are the most fascinating.

History

Daniel

Examining the New Manager Bounce in Professional Soccer

How much does a sports team's manager impact the team's performance? When things aren't going well for a professional sports team, the owner often takes the drastic action of firing and replacing the manager, even during the middle of a season. In this paper, we examine why owners take this action and analyze data from the English Premier League to understand its impact. We also explore the relative impact of other potential actions underperforming teams can take and make general recommendations.

History, Languages, Sports Analytics, Economics, Business

Joseph

Explore your family's global history: Family ancestry & migration project

Students would have the opportunity to research their own family's history, using public historical databases, and create an artistic representation of their lineage (collage, Prezi, graphic design, etc.). Students could focus on learning more about each country and city where their family lived, including art, culture and traditions. They also could focus on interviewing family members and recording stories and tales that have been passed through their family for generations. This project is very flexible and would be adapted to each student, depending on their family's history and their level of connection to family knowledge.

Psychology, Arts, History, Literature, Social Science, Organizational Leadership

Mimi

Creating Player Investment through Character Dialogue

(This is inspired by an independent study I did during my master's program.) The average gamer is only truly invested in a video game for the first 30 minutes of gameplay. Does character dialogue contribute or detract to that player experience? Does the player need to be an active participant or do they prefer to be a passive observer? Using narrative scenes featuring two or more characters, I will gauge multiple player factors for liking characters (such as what character archetypes players gravitate towards, and how to establish character arcs for players to take interest in).

History, Literature, Creative Writing, Social Science, Game Design

Tyler