Mini-Projects for CSE

Written by Coursera Staff • Updated on

Participating in a mini-project allows you to gain a practical understanding of the project's topic rather than just acquiring knowledge on a theoretical level, which can help prepare you for future projects and job roles.

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For students studying computer science and engineering (CSE), mini-projects typically appear in the curriculum during the final year. Participating in a mini-project allows you to gain a practical understanding of the project's topic rather than just gaining knowledge on a theoretical level, which can help prepare you for future projects and job roles.

8 mini-projects for CSE

You can undertake several mini-projects to put your academic knowledge into practice. These mini-project ideas are appropriate for CSE students new to Python, data science in general, or looking for project ideas in their last year. These suggestions for computer science projects will get you started with the tools necessary to succeed as a software developer. Below, we outline eight ideas to get you started: 

  • Chatbot

  • Online auction system

  • Academic evaluation system

  • Face detection and recognition

  • E-Authentication System

  • Resume builder web application

  • Video transcript summariser

  • Breakout ball game

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1. Chatbot

Chatbot is one of the everyday applications used to communicate with customers via text or voice. Many businesses use chatbots on their websites to respond to customers quickly, which reduces the need for human labour and provides faster response time. You can build natural language processing (NLP) applications interactively with the help of the Python library spaCy, for example, which can understand large amounts of text. It produces a wide variety of responses when combined with a machine-learning algorithm.

Learn how to Use SharePoint & Power Virtual Agent to Create a Smart Chatbot with a Guided Project on Coursera. 

2. Online auction system

An online auction system allows people to access an auction virtually. Buyers from various places can view the sellers' goods or services, which increases a business's exposure significantly. Ideally, your project will have fraud detection capabilities to create a safe online auction system that allows only authorised users to log in and place bids.

3. Academic evaluation system 

This project allows you to create a system of assessment that uses fuzzy logic to assess student academic achievement. To determine a student's overall academic success at a university, you can consider three factors: attendance, internal marks, and external marks. Fuzzy logic can be ideal because the inference algorithm has a much higher level of accuracy than traditional methods.

4. Face detection and recognition

Surveillance methods that use face detection and recognition are very common. They recognise and examine distinguishing facial features. Face detection using principal component analysis is an effective method. It has multiple uses, such as image compression and object recognition. The primary components of an effective face detection and recognition project include an algorithm that creates a faceprint, a camera to take the image of the face, a database of stored images of faces for comparison, and an algorithm to compare the captured image with the database.

You can also create a program to detect facial expressions for analysing emotions based on touchpoints of the face and programmed algorithms. 

5. E-authentication system

An authentication system keeps unauthorised users from gaining access to information and improves user experience. More users are adopting this technology due to the improved security features. Many authentication techniques can lend to your mini project, including passwords, biometrics, certificate-based, token-based, and multi-factor. Types of biometric authentication methods include facial recognition, fingerprint scanners, speaker recognition, and eye scanners.

6. Resume builder web application

An important step in any software journey is creating an "ideal resume," which is concise, to the point, correctly arranged, and readily updateable. For any working professional from any industry, a resume must be brief, straightforward, and up-to-date with the most recent work experience. You can use this project to create your resume and help working professionals with the same and enjoy the satisfaction of independently auto-generating it.

7. Video transcript summariser

This project aims to develop a Chrome extension that can request information from a backend REST API, perform natural language processing (NLP), and return a condensed YouTube transcript in response.

On the internet, a huge volume of video recordings is produced and shared every day. You can quickly spot key themes in these videos by automatically summarising their transcripts, saving time and energy from watching the entire thing.

This project will give you a chance to put the most recent NLP technique for abstractive text summarisation into practice while implementing an intriguing idea that is suitable for intermediates and a revitalising side project for professionals.

8. Breakout ball game

Mobile game developers frequently use Java to create games, given how adaptable the language is and how much rich open-source content is available. 

Breakout ball is a widely used game that was developed in the 1970s. The objective of the breakout is to remove every brick from the layer that covers the top third of the screen. A ball bounces off the top, two sides, and the entire screen as it moves straight around it. When a ball strikes a brick, the brick is destroyed as the ball bounces back. The player loses a turn when the ball touches the bottom of the screen. 

The objective is to use your platform to break the bricks without missing the ball. The project uses a variety of technologies, including Java Swing, OOPS, and more.

You can also program plenty of other games as mini-projects for CSE. Explore how to Create a Space Shooter Game with Scratch Studio, Create a Tic-Tac-Toe Game Using Java or Python, or enjoy Creating a Quiz Game Using Vanilla JavaScript.

Next steps

Try some interesting computer science project ideas as a starting point to learn more concepts and attempt higher-level projects. Working on real-world projects allows you to apply your knowledge and skills. Consider the projects available on Coursera to give you yet more practical experience for your resume, including GUI programming: Create a Calculator in Python to learn how to create a calculator using Python's Tkinter library, or upgrade your skills with the University of Michigan’s Python for Everybody course.

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