Computer Science Science Projects (56 results)
From cell phones to social media, computer science is a part of your daily life. Everything from traffic lights to medical devices requires both computer hardware and software these days. Creative problem solvers are using computer science to tackle social problems, improve agriculture, make great entertainment, and start exciting new companies. What could you create and innovate with a bit of tinkering and programming?
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Does your dog get bored when you are not home? Do you ever toss them a few treats right before you head out the door? What if you could keep them busy by automatically dispensing treats throughout the day? What about training them to sit in a certain place or even press a button by automatically rewarding them with treats? In this project you will build your own automatic dog (or cat, or other pet) treat dispenser that you can customize to react to different sensors.
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Featured
Have you heard that garlic powder is supposed to inhibit the growth of bacteria? Which do you think would make a better disinfectant: a solution of garlic powder or a solution of bleach? This project shows you a straightforward way to compare the effectiveness of different disinfectants (or other antimicrobial agents), by measuring zones of inhibition on a culture plate.
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Have you ever suffered from poor Wi-Fi reception for your smartphone, tablet, or laptop? Certain materials can actually block a Wi-Fi signal; do you think that could be part of your problem? In this science project, you will do an experiment to find out which materials cause the biggest drop in signal strength from a wireless router.
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Do you think artificial intelligence (AI) is too complex to use? Think again! In this project, you will use AI to teach a web-based tool to classify happy and sad faces, or other objects, poses, or sounds. This experiment requires no coding skills; instead, you will need curiosity, creativity, and a critical eye. Why not give it a try yourself?
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We use passwords every day for our email and other computer accounts. How secure is the password that you use? How hard would it be for someone to guess your password? How hard is it to write a computer program to guess a password? You can see for yourself by writing a simple password guesser in the computer language Python. We will get you started with some ideas, a little sample code, and a few passwords for your computer program to try and guess.
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When you hear the word "encryption," you might think about modern computers and things like email and online bank accounts. But did you know that encryption has been around for thousands of years? In this project you will learn about the Caesar cipher, a simple type of encryption that replaces each letter of the alphabet with another letter, and demonstrate how a modern computer can crack this ancient code in just a few seconds.
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New
Artificial intelligence (AI) programs can now generate photorealistic pictures of people who do not exist in the real world. How can you tell if a picture is of a real person or a fake, AI-generated person? What features of the picture do people use to decide whether the face is real or AI-generated? In this project, you will explore these questions as you ask volunteers to look at both real and AI-generated pictures of human faces.
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How do you design a program that can pilot a self-driving race car? By using machine learning. In this project, you will train your own machine learning model for an autonomous vehicle, the AWS (Amazon Web Services) DeepRacer. You can run your car's machine learning model on a simulated racetrack (Figure 1), or you can purchase a
1/18 scale model vehicle
that can race on a physical track (Figure 2).
Figure 1. Screenshot of the virtual racing environment.
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Lights and music make a great combination! Getting sound and lights to complement each other just right helps set the mood for everything from DJ parties and concerts, to theater shows, the circus, and ballet performances. You can put together your own lights and music show using
a Raspberry Pi.
Check out the video to see what this simple, but fun, project looks like:
Once you have the basics down, you can keep tinkering with the circuit, the sounds, and the program to make fancier…
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Driverless cars use machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence, to identify road signs and other things they encounter on the road, like pedestrians and other vehicles. In this project you will take your own pictures of different types of road signs and use machine learning to identify the signs using a free online tool (no programming is required). You will then attempt to improve your machine learning model so it can identify signs in a variety of environments.
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This project is a follow-up to the Science Buddies project
Explore Optical Illusions: Build an Infinity Mirror, which shows you how to build a basic infinity mirror using light emitting diodes (LEDs) and arts and crafts materials. What if you wanted to build an infinity mirror that could change colors, like the one in Figure 1?
Figure 1. A color-changing infinity mirror.
You can do this by using special RGB (red, green, and blue) LEDs. Just like…
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Remembering to take medication or perform a test regularly, consistently, and at specific times can be difficult for elderly people with short-term memory loss, or teenagers absorbed in activities. With mobile devices becoming our constant companions, could a smartphone or tablet offer a solution?
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has created a simple tool making it possible for anyone who has a computer and Internet access to create a reminder app. It is easy, quick, and…
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