I got this list from: CS1 Python Programming Projects Archive

It gives you some ideas and also gives you some supporting files.

• Beginnings: a set of simple projects when you have little to work with.
  • First Steps — little to work with.
    • Arithmetic: Input some numbers, do some simple arithmetic, output results.
    • Gasoline: Input some numbers, do some simple arithmetic on gas and oil quantities, output results.
    • Measurement: Input some numbers, do some simple arithmetic to do silly conversions such as furlongs/fortnight, output results.
    • Population: Input some numbers, do some simple arithmetic to estimate today’s U.S. population, output results.
    • Time Travel: Input some numbers, do some simple arithmetic to calculate travel time between stars, output results.
  • Simple Programs.
    • Einstein: Solve a simple number puzzle attributed to Einstein.
    • MacArthur: Solve a simple number puzzle attributed to MacArthur.
    • Tones: Calculate frequencies to generate tones on a computer speaker.
    • Turtle Graphics Angles: Use Turtle Graphics to draw two lines and the calculate the angle between them.
    • Turtle Graphics Polygon: Use Turtle Graphics to draw a polygon and fill it in with a color.
• Control: With selection and repetition we can begin to do something.
  • DigitCount: Input a number and a digit; count occurrences of the digit in the number.
  • LatinSquares: Input two numbers: order and start. Build a Latin square of that order with that starting number.
  • Number Theory: Persistence: Numbers can have interesting properties. Here we look at additive persistence where you sum the digits of a number and then sum the digits of the sum—continue until you get a single digit.
  • Number Theory: Pologinal: The ancient Greeks found number properties to be interesting. A pologinal number is a particular geometric arrangement of a number of balls. Here we find two triangular number that form a given square number.
  • Ancient Egyptian Multiplication: Weird Multiplication: To muliply A by B repeatedly multiply A by 2 while dividing B by 2 until the division has a remainder. If B becomes odd, add A to it. Sum the resulting A and B.
  • Calculator: Make a simple, basic arithmetic calculator. Accept an expression in the form “number operator number”, and calculate the result.
• Working With Strings.
  • Palindomic Integers: Use the 196-algorithm to construct palindomic integers starting from any integer.
  • Number-Guessing Game: Create a number-guessing game that provides hints on the number and position of correct digits in the guess (similar to Mastermind).
  • Hangman: Create a hangman game (without the graphics of the hangman itself).
  • Mastermind: Create a Mastermind game.
  • Caesar Cypher: Encode and decode strings using a Caesar cypher.
  • Rock Paper Scissors: Create a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.
• Functions (simple)
  • WeFeelFine: Use functions from a module to gather data for analysis from the “We Feel Fine” page. The result is a collection of people’s feelings scraped from blogs.
  • GDP vs. Employment: Using GDP and employment data from the web, prompt for a year and provide the data for that year.
  • Scrambled Words: Research shows that scrambled words can be read if the first and last letter are not changed, e.g. “Elingsh uinervtisy.” Read in a file and scramble the words except first letters, last letters, and punctuation.
  • Cracking a Caesar Cipher: Decrypt Caesar Ciphers using letter frequencies.
• Lists and Tuples
  • Basketball: Who is best basketball player in the NBA? Get data from the web and analyze it.
  • Latin: Search for Latin roots, suffixes, and prefixes in a file.
  • Anagrams: Given a word find all the anagrams of that word in a word list.
  • Data Mining: Data Mining of online Google stock data.
  • Build Query to Search Files: Build a simple query to search files ignoring stop words.
  • Sunspots: Using NOAA data from the web analyze sunspot data to predict the next sunspot peak.
  • Pascal’s Triangle: Construct Pascal’s Triangle to a specified depth.
  • Auto Mileage: Using online data on automobiles, gather engine size and mileage data. Use least squares to find a linear regression and correlation. Graph it.
  • Packaging: Minimize the amount of cardboard used to box a set of glasses with specified dimensions.
• Dictionaries and Sets
  • TagCloud: Build a tag cloud of the 2008 vice-presidential debates.
  • Movies & Actors: Using the online Internet Movies DataBase build a dictionary of movies and actors. Given two movies find all the actors in the movies (AND), find the common actors in the movies (OR), find the actors in either movie but not both (EXCLUSIVE_OR). Given an actor, find all the co-actors that actor has acted with.
  • BMI: Body Mass Index: Using real data from the Internet on a set of people, calculate their BMI, and then use least squares to find a linear regression and correlation. Extra credit: graph it.
  • Breast Cancer Classifier: Build a cancer classifier from breast cancer study data to predict if a given cancer is malignant or not.
  • Income Classifier: Build an income classifier from individuals’ characteristics (over 30K records from the Internet) to predict if the individual’s income will be greater than $50K or not.
  • Vocabulary Quiz: Build a vocabulary quiz program.
  • SpellCheck: Build a file spell checker that includes suggestions.
  • Natural Language Processing: Calculate unigrams and bigrams in a text file.
  • Natural Language Processing II: Create Markov chains from a given text and then use the chains to create new text.
• Classes: using instructor-designed classes to prepare for designing classes. We have found solitaire to be an excellent medium: we provide card and deck classes; students build a game. There are numerous variations on solitaire: e.g. World Of Solitaire.
  • BlackJackSquare: Solitaire with blackjack-style scoring.
  • EastHaven: A solitaire variation where cards from the stock go to all tableau columns.
  • Golf Relaxed: Another solitaire variation.
  • Aces Up: A solitaire variation that is a kids game.
  • Spider: Yet, another solitaire variation.
• Class Design
  • Elevator Simulator: Create three classes (Building, Elevator, and Customer) to use in simulating an elevator.
  • Face Drawing Program: Create five classes of facial features (using Turtle Graphics) and build a face drawing tool around them.
  • Minesweeper: Create a Minesweeper class and design a Minesweeper game around it.
  • Protein Transcription: Create a transcriber class so you can take in a sequence of DNA bases, use a mapping of amino acids to codons, and yield a sequence of amino acids.
  • Queue Simulation: There are four ATM machines in the student union. Should students form one queue or four? Create an event class and build an event-driven simulation around that class. Use the simulator to answer the question.
  • Game of Life: Create a class for the Game of Life and then build the game around it.
  • Traveler’s Dilemma: Write a program that plays the Travler’s Dilemma using at least one class and one exception. Test your game with ten different pairs of people. Analyze the results.
  • Dilbert’s Carpet Fishing: A Dilbert cartoon has him playing an office game he calls “Carpet Fishing.” Using at least one class, write the game.
  • Turtle Classes: Create a set of classes of graphical components of your own design for use in creating a TurtleGraphics picture of your own design.
  • Dating Service : Create a dating service with your own matching algorithm supported by classes of your own design.
  • Dominos: Create a Dominos game supported by classes of your own design.
  • TurtleCar: Create a library of classes to support drawing a car using Turtle graphics.

Found this list on GitHub: https://github.com/plt/racket/wiki/Intro-Projects

Intro Projects

Related articles

• Understanding GitHub: A Journey For Beginners, Part 1 (readwrite.com)

Like chess puzzles for mathematicians and computer programmers!

From their website:

Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems.

The motivation for starting Project Euler, and its continuation, is to provide a platform for the inquiring mind to delve into unfamiliar areas and learn new concepts in a fun and recreational context.

Who are the problems aimed at?

The intended audience include students for whom the basic curriculum is not feeding their hunger to learn, adults whose background was not primarily mathematics but had an interest in things mathematical, and professionals who want to keep their problem solving and mathematics on the edge.

Can anyone solve the problems?

The problems range in difficulty and for many the experience is inductive chain learning. That is, by solving one problem it will expose you to a new concept that allows you to undertake a previously inaccessible problem. So the determined participant will slowly but surely work his/her way through every problem.

http://projecteuler.net/

So in both my Learn to Program: The Fundamentals and my Introduction to Systematic Programming – Part One they introduce the concept of design recipes – basically a step by step way to write certain programming features, like functions for example.

So I wanted a way to recall these recipes within the shell so in the beginning I can always follow the recipe when I’m designing, in this case, functions.

So in python, it was easy, just created my own module and wrote the following functions (one expandable one so when I Learn more recipes I can add them in, and a second one for immediate use):

def recipe(n):
if n == “htdf”:
print(“Step One: Examples”)
print(“Step Two: Type Contract”)
print(“Step Three: Header”)
print(“Step Four: Description”)
print(“Step Five: Body”)
print(“Step Six: Test”)
else:
return “”

def htdf():
print(“Step One: Examples”)
print(“Step Two: Type Contract”)
print(“Step Three: Header”)
print(“Step Four: Description”)
print(“Step Five: Body”)
print(“Step Six: Test”)

But I was having trouble in Racket(BSL), although I cheated a bit by using an image, it doesn’t really work as a function… this is what I have so far but I haven’t been able to emulate what I did in Python in the Racket(BSL) shell DrRacket:

(define (RECIPE n)
(if (string=? n “HTDF”)
[I put a jpeg of the receipt in point for here]

“false”))

Now the problem with my cheat is that I can’t call the function remotely, and have been using the (require module_name) that loads it right at the beginning and not as a callable function.

So if anyone has any ideas on how to replicate what I’ve done in python in racket(BSL), I’m all ears!