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

Does time of day affect our sense of humor?

Assign friends/volunteers to rate the funniness of memes and comedy videos in the morning vs the evening, and gauge whether jokes are funnier to people in the evening (when people are statistically less inhibited, and more cognitively flexible) vs the morning (when people are more focused, and show greater inhibition). Note: my research has already tackled this question, but we can come up with another very doable idea like this one!

Social, Sports Analytics

Drew

Why ___ will be the next successful sports city.

*Note this is a very complex project* After the run of dominance of Boston in the first 20 years of the 2000's winning 12 combined championships among the four teams, which city is next primed to be a powerhouse for the next 20 years? Things to take a look at might include young talent on teams, new hires in front offices, economic development in cities, or maybe something else.

Sports Analytics

Joseph

NBA shot selection analysis using SportVU tracking data

The NBA releases an abundance of coordinate-based tracking data for each game. This project will make use of the 25 frames of data per second to not only identify when shots have been taken but also retrieve key information about the selection of shots by each team and player. The student will build an app to display shot charts and also potentially classify how smart a shot is based on metrics like score differential, shot distance, defender distance, shot clock usage, etc. This will help build a compelling analysis of what differentiates good shooters from smart shooters!

Computer Science, Sports Analytics, Quantitative, AI/ML

Sejal

Predicting NBA Contracts

Using NBA Salary data and statistics for players currently under contract to determine what a player facing free agency should be paid in free agency.

Computer Science, Sports Analytics

Does learning about deepfakes put people in a distrusting mindset?

Have friends/volunteers take a survey where they learn about and watch deepfakes. Assign them to self-report on their feelings of distrust and see if they perform better on cognitive tasks that benefit from distrust either a) before learning about the deepfakes or b) after. See if learning about deepfakes led people to show greater signs of distrust. Note: my research has already tackled this question, but we can come up with another very doable idea like this one!

Social, Sports Analytics

Drew

Basketball Statistics Reporting Website.

Not interested in predictive modeling? cleaningtheglass.com is a great example of the the usefulness of a clean and important reporting tool. This project will be more heavily focused on the data engineering and gathering and front end visualization.

Sports Analytics, Statistics

Taylor

Projecting Free Agent Contracts

Evaluating the market for a free agent based upon similar players contracts.

Sports Analytics

Samual

Evolving Landscape of Sports Audience and Viewership

Technology has brought on a swift change in the way fans consume sports. This project will uncover how many people consume sports (by sport) and how that has changed in recent years due to technology (and COVID). What are the business outcomes of such changes and where are the possible growth opportunities for firms / brands to invest.

Sports Analytics

cameron

Player Projection Model

538's RAPTOR and basketball index's PIPM are just two examples of predictive models that take in a players past and current performance to predict out how they will be in the coming years. Similar to the draft model, understanding which player's are on the verge of improving and which have the potential to decline is important for NBA front offices. This project will include data gathering and cleaning, predictive modeling with the potential to create an app based visualization to show results.

Sports Analytics, Statistics

Taylor

NBA Combine Data on Player performance

Are metrics measured at the NBA combine indicative of player performance at the NBA level, such as does an NBA player's measured hand size effect their 3 point shooting percentage or wingspan enhance their ability to create turnovers.

Computer Science, Sports Analytics

Chicago Food Health Inspection

For all the foodies out there, this is a great dataset to learn more about local and chain restaurants in Chicago. You can stratify the dataset and review inspection infractions based on your interests (like fast food chains). We can even feature engineer additional predictors to help predict whether or not a restaurant will have a violation. If you're not up for model building, we could even create an interactive dashboard solution to help visualize and better understand groups and patterns in the data. It really is all up to you! Dataset: https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-Services/Food-Inspections/4ijn-s7e5

Computer Science, Sports Analytics, Quantitative, Statistics

Atharv

Neuroimaging Classification: a machine learning approach for glioma detection

Given brain MRI scans, the student will apply image processing techniques to get usable black-and-white image image objects and feed them into a classifier to automatically extract tumor information from the scans, thus reducing the burden on imaging specialists by augmenting the task of medical diagnosis with AI and technology.

Computer Science, Sports Analytics, Quantitative, AI/ML

Sejal

Raised Banner: A Marketing Agency

This project will allow me to leverage my entrepreneurial mindset as well as my skills in technical business writing, strategic planning, and sales management. "Raised Banner" is a marketing agency that unapologetically aims to be the most innovative, inclusive, creative and efficient in the industry. The student will brainstorm ways to leverage data analytics, programming strategy, and content management to delivery powerful results for clients. The first order of business is securing clients which requires prospecting, public speaking, research, and sales management skills. Do you want to take your business skills to the next level and conduct yourself like an executive champion? Look no further than "Raised Banner."

Arts, Sports Analytics, Creative Writing, Social Science, Business

Raheem

The Impact of a Basketball Player's Angle Towards the Basket on Shooting Percentage

This project involves analyzing the effect that the angle between which a basketball player receives a pass from a teammate and the basket has on their chance of making a shot. I hypothesize that as the angle decreases, the chance of making the shot increases. This project could help basketball teams strategize their offensive schemes to increase their shooting efficiency.

Sports Analytics

Nick

Player Projection Model

Sports Analytics, Statistics

Taylor

Basketball Statistics Reporting Website.

Sports Analytics, Statistics

Taylor

Player Projection Model

Sports Analytics, Statistics

Taylor

Fan Cost Index & Attendance

As COVID comes to an end, a major concern of all major professional sports league (NBA, MLB, NFL & NHL) is the return of max attendance throughout their stadiums and venues. Yet this recovery has not come as quickly as some may have hoped and that can be due to a multitude of reasons. One major variable that would be interesting to look into is the cost of attending these events as it seems these events never go down in price. Cost of attendance could be a major deterrent for fans as they need to decide where discretionary money is spent. Analyzing the cost of attending sporting events by league, team, and region could be a major insight into why attendance may be stagnant.

History, Sports Analytics, Business, Finance

Gregory

Brain-Computer Interfaces: Where are they now, where could they go?

Brain-Computer Interfaces are a hot-button topic within the Biomedical Engineering community right now. Scientists have been using them in a variety of applications stemming from prosthetics to data collection to use for machine learning. In this project, we dive deep into the use of brain-computer interfaces for disease detection and diagnosis to uncover the current progress being made in this field and its current trajectory.

Biotech, Engineering, Sports Analytics, Statistics

Anish

Player Projection Model

Sports Analytics, Statistics

Taylor