In Dire Need of Ideas

[Void134]

Ok so i need some ideas that are doable in one and a half months. I want it to be challenging, but not to hard (not to easy either).

I want it to be in the field of Programming. I am in 8th grade so please appropriate projects.

[Void134]

Can anyone please help????

[hhemken]

Void134,

Here are some ideas I cut and pasted from another thread for a little more advanced, non-standard computer science projects:

Science Buddies Page:
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-f ... vanced&p=1

New Mexico Super computing challenge project proposals from High School Students:
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/view_proposals.php

Google's Computer Science Projects for High School
http://www.cs4hs.com/projects/index.html

The best way to choose any problem to approach combines 1) something for which there is a clear need, and 2) something for which you have a passion, special talent or skill, knowledge, advantage, etc. If you have some kind of hobby or extracurricular activity, model something about it in an algorithm and iteratively improve it. Change things around, do the same thing in two or three (or more) completely different and unrelated ways. Represent the data in different ways. Report the data in different ways that can improve the hobby or activity in various different ways. The fun starts when you try to represent your hobby or activity in an abstract representation that can be manipulated in software.

But it has to be something in your life that you do a lot, and about which you are highly motivated.

Good luck!

Heinz Hemken

[akbarkhan]

The expert above is provides an excellent response. Only thing that I can add is to find some topic that you have passion about and avoid the easy idea that is expedient and will get the job done. After all, the idea is for you to learn something out of all the time you are spending.

Example: One area for me is how weather works and how to model it to make actionable predictions. I would love to spend time learning how they predict weather.

[Void134]

Thank you for your effort in helping me! But I already browsed through all of them and none of them seem to interest me. I do have a skill at this and i like to do this. The second link had some ideas that really didn't have to do with what i was looking for, and the last link only showed a map and no ideas.

Too be more specific, I want a project that is based around programming languages (very general and the project can be just about anything if it falls under this category) including:

Python, C, C++, HTML, Javascript, CSS, Possibly others but listed ones mostly

The project doesn't have to use all of them, but a few. As i said before it doesn't have to be extraordinarily difficult but i would like it to be challenging.
It would be most appreciated if someone could post original ideas instead of just links.

Thanks for all of your help. I hope I'm not causing to much trouble or anything. I'm not trying to be picky, but i really want a good project.

- Void134

[hhemken]

Void134,

You need to tell us about your hobbies, interests, passions, obsessions, etc. We know you are going to program something, so listing the languages you might use doesn't give us much guidance. Also, you prabably will only use one of them, unless you do some kind of a web app project.

Let me cut and paste what I said earlier:

The best way to choose any problem to approach combines 1) something for which there is a clear need, and 2) something for which you have a passion, special talent or skill, knowledge, advantage, etc. If you have some kind of hobby or extracurricular activity, model something about it in an algorithm and iteratively improve it. Change things around, do the same thing in two or three (or more) completely different and unrelated ways. Represent the data in different ways. Report the data in different ways that can improve the hobby or activity in various different ways. The fun starts when you try to represent your hobby or activity in an abstract representation that can be manipulated in software.

What is the thing that your program will do, or what problem does it address in your everyday world? In what part of your world does it fit?


Heinz Hemken

[Void134]

It can be about anything really... but i got one idea. Creating an invincible tic-tac-toe intelligence. I would like ideas similar to that, but really, the idea can be anything. My hobbies and obsessions have nothing to do with programming how soever. So any idea can work if it is in the field of programming and is doable in a month for someone my age

[hhemken]

Void134,

Note that we aren't here to give you ideas, but to help you brainstorm. You have to tell us what projects might be interesting!

Tic tac toe is interesting. There are probably several out there already. Maybe you could have a look at some to get ideas. Try googling this:

Code: Select all

javascript tic tac toe

or this:

Code: Select all

javascript games source code

You would have to either make some truly significant improvement to an existing game, or create a brand new one based on what you learn by examining the ones that already exist.

Let us know what you think.


Heinz Hemken

[Void134]

Alright. I made up my mind on a question. My project is based on creating an (original) tic-tac-toe intelligence that can never lose. I was thinking i would use either

PYTHON
or
HTML5, Javascript, and CSS3

Then i would test out the abilities of it. If it loses, remake the program. Sounds good?

So then I was kinda confused on how this experiment might be carried out....

1) Make the program

2) Test it

3*) If program is not perfect, remake.

4*) Test

Are those the steps? Just those?

[akbarkhan]

A word of caution on creating the "perfect tic-tac-toe game"--define what is perfect on a specific basis. Vague ideas, such as "perfect games", are impossible to define, test, and verify that they work as they are supposed to; instead suggest creating specific and likely conditions and then building/testing to those criteria. Except for very small systems, it is usually impossible to think of every eventuality and therefore, engineers design around most-likely scenarios and leave off the less-likely ones. For example, bridges are designed with back-to-back trucks crossing the bridge, but are not designed for a UFO or Godzilla landing on it!

[Void134]

Well, there aren't an endless amount of possibilities in Tic-Tac-Toe... but aside that.

My science teacher wants the experiment in a

What effect does ______ have on ______?

I'm kind of unclear on what the question should be so any ideas with the format above?

[hhemken]

Void134,

Questions like "What effect does ______ have on ______?" in software development are usually dealt with by having input parameters in your algorithm(s) and program functions that can be changed each time your program is run. For example, how many steps ahead the program considers, how many different possible moves, etc. These might be the number of iterations that key loops in the code are performed or something else, depending on your design. If varying these parameters makes your program better or worse at tic tac toe against humans, then 1) you have dealt with your teacher's requirement, and 2) you will have learned something interesting about tic tac toe in particular and playing games in general.

Good luck!


Heinz Hemken

[Void134]

I was kind of unsure on what this question would be so i thought maybe:

"What effect do different code sequences have on the AI's ability to play tic-tac-toe without losing?"

Not sure if this is a good question but....yea...

[hhemken]

Void134,

That more specific question could also be addressed by being able to select different code sequences at runtime, maybe even mixing and matching if you have different parts of the program where you can choose between two or three options for each of them. For example (referring to my earlier remarks), if you have three options for how many steps ahead the program considers, and three options for how many different possible moves or strategies it checks per move, then there are nine different runtime combinations that can be tried. For each of them you can have several people play against the program and get statistics of how often the program wins against them. That would give you some objective measures to judge what approaches are better.

Examine your design and see where you can allow different options to be used in this way.

Heinz Hemken

[Void134]

I was also thinking that maybe this question would also suffice

"What effect does the (programming) language have on the AI's ability to play Tic-Tac-Toe?"

If this would be a good question i have a slight but still unclear idea on how to measure this.

Hope I'm not causing too much trouble.