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Twelfth Grade, Computer Science Projects, Lessons, Activities (18 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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Mars Terrain Exploration: A Hands-On Coding Investigation
Science Fair Project Idea
Scientific Method
Have you ever wondered what the surface of Mars is really like close up? Are you wondering what the Mars rovers get to see and experience? Some parts of Mars look smooth and sandy, whereas others are covered in rocks and rough terrain. In this project, you’ll step into the role of a planetary scientist and use real Mars rover images and Python code to detect, measure, and compare rocks across different types of Martian terrain. Here you’ll explore how image processing can help… Read more
Password Security: How Easily Can Your Password Be Hacked?
Science Fair Project Idea
Scientific Method
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. Read more
How do Self-Driving Cars Know What to Do?
STEM Activity
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204 reviews
How do driverless cars know what to do at an intersection? How do they know when they should stop and when it is their turn to go? What about yielding to pedestrians? In this activity, you will write your own algorithm, or list of steps, for a driverless car to follow when navigating through various road scenarios like stop signs, traffic lights, and roundabouts (traffic circles). Read more
Simulating The Kessler Syndrome: How Satellite Collisions Could Spiral Out of Control
Science Fair Project Idea
Engineering Design Process
What happens when a satellite collision in space leads to a chain reaction of more collisions? This project models The Kessler Syndrome: A scenario in which collisions between satellites in low Earth orbit create increasing amounts of debris, eventually making the region too dangerous for satellites or spacecraft to operate safely. By adjusting key variables like collision rates and debris generation, you can visualize how quickly space around Earth could become overcrowded, and explore… Read more
Crack the Code: Breaking a Caesar Cipher
Science Fair Project Idea
Scientific Method
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. Read more
Introduction to Arduino
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-12th
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This lesson plan will introduce your students to physical computing: the process of building circuits and programming a microcontroller (an Arduino UNO®) to interact with them. The lesson is broken into seven activities that will walk your students through the basics of setting up the Arduino and interacting with circuit parts like LEDs, buttons, and resistors. This introductory material will help prepare your students for more advanced Arduino projects. Read more
Drive a Race Car with Machine Learning
Science Fair Project Idea
Engineering Design Process
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 - note: new cars are no longer for sale, but you may be able to purchase a used one on a site like… Read more
Teach a Computer to Recognize Road Signs
STEM Activity
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How do driverless cars know how to recognize different road signs? They use something called machine learning. In this activity you will teach a computer to recognize different road signs using photos that you take yourself and a tool called Teachable Machine by Google®. The better the training data, the more accurately the program will be able to recognize different types of signs. Read more
Build an Arduino Mini-Drone
Lesson Plan Grade: 8th-12th
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In this STEM lesson, students will build a mini popsicle stick drone and use feedback control with an Arduino and an ultrasonic sensor to control the drone's altitude. Read more
Build an Arduino Self-Driving Car
Lesson Plan Grade: 8th-12th
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This eight-part lesson will guide you through building and programming Arduino-controlled autonomous cars with your students. Each part contains a detailed step-by-step video and a supplemental lesson plan PDF with learning objectives, assessment opportunities, and appendices with circuit diagrams and example code. You can present the material yourself or have students follow along with the videos and pause to work on their autonomous cars. Read more
NGSS Performance Expectations:
  • HS-ETS1-2. Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.
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