30 Passion Project Ideas for Middle School Students: Computer Science Edition

If you are a middle school student interested in computer science, you should definitely consider working on a beginner friendly personal project. With increasing competition, having worked on a project will help you stand out among the crowd while also nurturing your interest in the field of tech. There are always summer programs or competitions that you can pursue to begin your journey towards a meaningful career in tech but nothing beats a passion project.

Depending on the type of passion project you’d be interested in, we have broken down 30 project ideas into 6 categories! 

Passion Project Category #1: Analyze data you’re interested in 

Data analysis is one of the first applications that comes to mind when talking about computer science. It is a well-established field and all organizations, big or small, private or government, make use of the technology to make sense of raw data and produce valuable output. The analysis will involve the use of Python libraries like Pandas and NumPy, as well as R or SQL, to manipulate, visualize, and make inferences from data, so a basic understanding of coding is required. 

1. Weather Data Analysis

One of the most simple projects that you can pursue is the collection and analysis of weather data in your local area. The data is readily available online, and you can analyze various factors like temperature, snowfall, and precipitation using similar techniques. You will use Python/Pandas to analyze the data and you can visualize the same using charts or graphs to display patterns for your selected weather factor. 

2. Survey Analysis

You can analyze the impact of social media on the career choices of a particular age group by conducting surveys and interviews. You will need to create an online questionnaire or survey form using HTML and CSS. A little bit of coding knowledge is required but a well-designed survey will help you draw useful conclusions on the impact of social media on the career choices of students. 

3. Sports Analysis: Create radar plots

Radar plots are one of the easiest and best visualization techniques in sports analysis, as they present an overview of player ratings, attributes, and performance metrics in one go. Python and any one of the IDEs, like NetBeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ, and Visual Studio, can also be used to undertake this project.

4. Environmental Data Analysis

You can gather data on environmental factors such as air quality, water pollution, or wildlife populations in their local area from one of the many available datasets or weather forecast websites. You will perform Exploratory Data Analysis on the selected database, which will help in data summarizing, restructuring, and visualization. As the R language is designed for statistical computing and graphics, it will be used here, and some knowledge of RStudio is also required for data visualization in terms of graphs and bars. 

5. Literature Survey and Research

Perform a literature review to study the interaction between a machine-learning model and a person. Focus on the sincerity, depth, or humor displayed by the model’s response. On the side, you can start writing a research paper on ML models and their real-life impact on fields such as creative writing, copywriting, and art.

Passion Project Category #2: Build an App

6. Flashcard App

If you are interested in historical or scientific facts, building a flashcard app is a great way to showcase your knowledge and also a great way to keep track of your learning, as you can update the app as you keep on learning new things! First, you'll need to choose if you want a web-based app, a mobile app for iOS or Android devices, or a desktop app, and you will need to choose platforms like Scratch, MIT App Inventor, and Thunkable. 

7. QR Code Reader

You must’ve come across QR codes because they are literally everywhere! Building a QR code scanner is a simple task and can make for an interesting passion project. You can gain hands-on experience with programming, image processing, and app development while exploring the practical applications of QR code technology.

8. Language learning app

Most of the students will take up an AP language class in high school, the most common of which is Spanish. If you want to create a fun way to brush up your skills before heading to high school, you can develop an app and add a leaderboard feature to ensure a little friendly rivalry in your group. To develop a web-based app, you’ll need to use JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. 

9. School bus app

Building a school bus app not only makes for a great passion project for a middle school student but is also one with a useful application. You will develop the app to provide information about school bus routes, schedules, and pickup/drop-off locations for students and parents. For a beginner-level project, you can use a platform like MIT App Inventor or Thunkable.

10. Drawing and image editing app

Developing a drawing and art app is one of the most engaging passion projects that you can work on. The purpose would be to provide a digital canvas where users can draw, sketch, or paint using various tools and colors. To add another utility, editing options can also be included in the app.

Passion Project Category #3: Develop a game

11. Tic Tac Toe

Tic Tac Toe is one of the classic games that every one of us has played growing up. The good news is that you can develop this game as an app online in quick and easy steps! Building a Tic Tac Toe game would allow students to learn about programming concepts such as data structures, control flow, user input handling, and basic game logic.

12. Pictionary 

Pictionary is again another classic game, which is fun while also being a good way to promote team-building and analytical skills in students. You will need to use a few different coding algorithms to build the app, which will involve synchronizing drawings and guessing actions between players in real-time, so multiplayer support will need to be developed. 

13. Build a story game

When talking about games, after graphics, the first thing that you would want from the game is a good story that explains character development and is in sync with the missions. While developing a visually appealing game requires an advanced level of coding and knowledge of graphic design, you can develop a simple game in which you can build a story alongside your friends!

14. Slot Machine 

Create a game that simulates a slot machine. This is a simple game to get started with and helps familiarize you with concepts such as random number generation in Python. You could also add a creative spin to it by creating an unwinnable game of slots and making sure that at no point are all three slots the same. 

15.  Prodigy-like game

Prodigy is an educational role-playing game that helps students learn math through gameplay. While recreating the game from scratch will be a challenging task, you can build a similar game that can be just as enriching in terms of knowledge but a bit basic visually. Developing gameplay mechanics that integrate learning activities will be a key challenge and you will need to use a game engine like Unity and platforms like Scratch to build the basics of the game.

16. Games like Sudoku or Wordle

Recreate a classic puzzle game such as Sudoku or Wordle on your own from scratch. You could also add your own spin on this by creating new rules that change the user’s experience and make it more interesting. You don’t have to copy the game completely and add features that you feel are missing or are required to make it even more interesting!

Passion Project Category #4: Develop an AI-based system

17. Develop a Chatbot

Building a chatbot will be one of the most rewarding passion projects using AI. Chatbots are everywhere and you must’ve had the opportunity to interact with one. Chatbots are fun and serve a very practical purpose. You can use languages like Python or JavaScript, along with libraries like NLTK or TensorFlow to build a chatbot from scratch. If you're building a chatbot that uses natural language processing (NLP), you'll need to train it using datasets according to your needs.

18. Develop a Spell-checker

Developing an AI-based spell checker offers you a chance to explore natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. You’ll learn how to prepare text for analysis, work with language models and datasets, and create algorithms for spell-checking. This is a slightly complex project as you’ll need to define the user interface (UI) and will require an understanding of common techniques for spell checking, such as edit distance algorithms (e.g., Levenshtein distance). Python libraries like NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) and spaCy are suitable for this passion project.

19. Video summary writer

Develop a model that turns YouTube videos into concise and professional reports. This can be used to summarize educational material on the platform that often gets overlooked since it isn’t considered professional enough. This will be a simple passion project that will use Python as the programming language and work alongside libraries like OpenCV or MoviePy. 

20. Face detection software

Create face detection software from scratch using the OpenCV library. You could create software that detects faces in videos and pictures and classifies them into different categories. You could use different classifiers that are pre-trained in OpenCV to detect faces in real-time and track them. Some knowledge and experience of computer vision will be helpful here.

21. Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis is one of the most useful applications of AI and Machine Learning. Firstly, you’ll need to select a topic that interests you, such as movie reviews, social media posts, or book summaries, and select the relevant dataset. Each sample will need to be classified as positive, negative, or neutral, which allows for proper sentiment expression. This is a slightly advanced project to be done as a passion project and will require knowledge of Python alongside Machine Learning algorithms like TensorFlow.

22.  AI Models in Healthcare

AI is set to revolutionize how healthcare systems work across the world. One of the passion projects in this sector will not only be a good learning experience but also help you make a good contribution to the sector. You can build AI models in healthcare that are more interpretable and accessible to patients. Often, these models may end up giving very complex outputs, which may not be accessible to patients. Try providing full transparency about how the diagnosis was made to ensure that the patient is not uncertain about their diagnosis.

23. Fake News Detection

Develop a system to distinguish between real and fake news on Twitter using a dataset of example tweets. Train a model using text analysis, title evaluation, and source verification techniques to predict the accuracy of news posts. This research will contribute to improving media literacy and preventing the spread of misinformation.

Passion Project Category #5: Social Computer Science 

24. Research Papers to explore bias in LLMs

Not all passion projects need to be coding or tech-oriented. With the advent of Large language models (LLMs) and usage in our day-to-day lives, it is imperative to see if the output given to us from the LLMs is biased or influenced by some intrinsic factors. You can explore how the LLMs are trained and present the adverse impacts of incorrect outputs. To make the project interesting, you can design an experiment with an area that is prone to bias and gauge the responses. 

25. Workshops for students not familiar with Computer Science and AI

If you are well-versed in coding and comfortable with computers, one of the most rewarding passion projects can be conducting virtual or in-person workshops for other students who are interested in computer science but have not had the opportunity to work with computers. You can conduct this with the help of your parents or school to spread the word and arrange for the resources required. 

26. Computer Science Clubs

If your school already has a computer science club, you should aim to be an active part of it and drive the activities there. Having a well-established club will help in the cultivation of knowledge from other students and foster innovation. You will also be able to undertake multiple projects at once! If there is no club, take the initiative and model it after successful school clubs from your network or famous colleges.

Passion Project Category #6: Other miscellaneous projects

27. Guidance Robot

Build a system that would enable a robot to navigate an unfamiliar environment. You will need to use computer vision principles such as edge detection and robotics tools such as remote sensors to implement such a system. You can use Arduino or Raspberry Pi to set up the robot.

28. Password manager

Encryption is one of the main pillars of cyber security. To familiarize yourself with the same, you can take up a passion project which involves making a password manager for yourself and your family. The programming language for the project needs to be Python and you can use encryption algorithms like AES and Blowfish to securely store passwords and other sensitive data. This is an advanced project and you might need some help or guidance from mentors. 

29. Productivity Manager

In the fast-paced modern world, being productive is valued as one of the biggest strengths of a working professional in any industry. Building a productivity app will help students understand app development, user interface design, and project management. While building the app and establishing the productivity features, students will themselves learn more about the basics and importance of productivity. 

30. Product Price Tracker

Product Price Tracker is a type of web-scraping passion project that you can undertake to allow users to track the prices of products from online retailers over time. You can use libraries like BeautifulSoup in Python to scrape product prices from online retailers' websites and use a database like SQLite to store your data. 

One of the best ways to work on passion projects is through programs like Veritas AI! 

Founded by Harvard graduate students, Veritas AI gives you the opportunity to work 1-1 with mentors from universities like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Oxford, and more to build unique projects or write research papers. Last year, we had over 1000 students apply to do AI work with us, and our alums went on to study computer science and AI at top universities. You can find the application form here.

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