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

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

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

Detecting Light Pollution with Astrophotography

Light pollution is easy to observe if you have ever been both inside and outside of a city. It affects everything from animal migration to our ability to clearly see stars. But how do we quantify light pollution? Photography is a way to capture photons—units of light. With consistent observations and some calibration, we can determine how much light affects various regions.

Physics, Photography, Math

Carissa

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

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

Documentary Film or Performance

Equipping and providing creative tools to that could guide a documentary process of filmmaking or performance making. The way one approaches a documentary project always influences and determines what is being documented, so understanding what type of approach work best in certain situations, while maintaining ethics, is key to a successful documentary project.

Dance, Photography, Creative Writing

Sami

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

Solving Medical Problems

Let's identify a problem in patient care and develop a device design or other solution to help address it. We will learn the basics of the design process including needs assessment, research, prototyping, and testing. Students can learn to use any tools they need, including but not limited to CAD, 3D printing, physical manufacturing methods, and Matlab. If you can dream it you can make it!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Personal Trainer, a la New York Times Seven Minute Workout

Develop an application to run through the NYT Seven Minute Workout. Expand the list of exercises, and add variability/randomness to the workouts, to yield a simple, virtual personal trainer.

Photography

Chris

Ethics of AI

Artificial intelligence is promising many big changes in our world. In this project, we will spend some time understanding the technical underpinnings of things like generative AI and then dive into literature on the ethics of it. Students will come away with a deeper understanding of generative AI from both technical and societal standpoint.

Biology, Philosophy, Engineering, Computer Science, Photography

Henry

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

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