Nifty Assignments

SIGCSE 2012: See experimental Dan Garcia "Ensemble" markup pages on the 2011 assignments

Nifty Assignments 2012
Stereo Sound Processing -- Daniel Zingaro	CS1 (early) - remove vocals from sound
Guitar Heroine -- Kevin Wayne	CS1/CS2, Extremely neat -- math model creates realistic guitar sound
Uno -- Stephen Davies	CS1, Strategy AI to play Uno.
Image Editor -- Joshua T. Guerin and Debby Keen	CS1/CS2 Code to experiment with images, but requiring only the ability to change text files.
Igel Ärgern -- Zachary Kurmas	CS2 Hedgehogs in a Hurry game
Binary Bomb -- David O'Hallaron	Post CS2 -- neat assignment puzzle to play with understanding of compiled code and memory as they truly are. On the linked page, see the README, Writeup, Release Notes, Self-Study Handout which all work without a password. To play with the code, email Dave and he'll send you what you need to get the binaries.

Nifty Assignments 2011
Image Puzzles -- Nick Parlante	CS0 or later, great puzzles using images, tiny code required
BMP Puzzles -- David Malan	CS1, More and better image puzzles, looking at bytes of BMP file representation
Book Recommendations -- Michelle Craig	CS1, Like the Netflix movie-recommendation system, generate book recommendations. Surprisingly simple algorithms give a neat results.
Generic Scrolling Game -- Dave Feinberg	CS1, Project pattern which supports a variety of games. Easily allows students to customize rules, graphics etc. of simple game.
Wator World -- Mike Scott	CS1-CS2, Shark/fish simulation using GridWorld type abstraction. Neat simulation/modeling example working from simple rules.
Hamming Codes -- Stuart Hansen	CS2, Neat exercise with a real algorithm. Push the students to understand that it's really all bytes.
Evil Hangman -- Keith Schwarz	CS2 or late CS1 - Awesome variant of Hangman, where the computer cheats by dodging all the user's guesses

Nifty Assignments 2010
Picobot -- Zachary Dodds	CS0-CS1, day-1 assignment -- neat environment to get students started, works in the browser
Pig -- Todd Neller	CS1, intermediate difficulty game to implement, but students love it and lots of variations
Song Generator -- Daniel Zingaro	CS1, implement filters with short bits of code, but it all works in the domain of sound, making in a novel and engaging domain for the students
CSI: Computer Science Investigation -- David Malan	The instructor accidentally erases the compact flash card containing their images. Students write code to recover the images, solve the treasure hunt using the images
Encryption Chase -- Mark Sherriff	CS2, encryption coding, embedded in a team active-learning campus treasure hunt
Chatting Aimlessly (IM) -- Thomas Murtagh	CS1, implement simple instant messaging client in CS1 -- talk about a technology near to the student heart!

Nifty Assignments 2009
Star Map -- Karen Reid	CS1, neat drawing of the night sky and constellations -- simple file reading and drawing
Face Pamphlet -- Mehran Sahami	CS1, simple Facebook application built with just CS1 technology, students love it
Secrets In Images -- Brent Heeringa, Thomas Murtagh	CS1, hide secret messages inside images -- neat image manipulation with data as simple arrays
Random Art -- Christopher A Stone	CS1, build nifty images with recursive nested random symbolic math expressions (python)
Enigma Encryption -- Dave Reed	CS1-CS21, range of easy to complex cryptography projects, using paper/manipulation model to get started
DNA Splicing -- Owen Astrachan	CS2, surprisingly easy DNA manipulation, set up for the students to measure/experiment with their code

Nifty Assignments 2008
Catch Plagiarists -- Baker Franke	CS1-CS2, typical CS2 data structures, difficulty can be adjusted. Search within a set of documents to find pairs with copied content
Genetic Algorithm TSP -- Raja Sooriamurthi	CS1-CS2, basic genetic algorithms. Use genetic algorithms to solve the traveling salesman problem
Asteroids -- Dan Leyzberg, Art Simon	CS1-CS2, objects, inheritance, abstract classes. An impressive implementation of Asteroids with OOP design and inheritance
Huffman Images -- Morgan McGuire, Tom Murtagh	CS1(late) or CS2(early). Labs to explore huffman compression in the context of image bitmap manipulation
Maze Solver -- Don Blaheta	CS2, stacks, queues, 2d arrays. Play around with algorithms to solve a maze. Works with gridworld
Dice Flip -- Cay Horstmann	CS1-CS2, prolog for advanced CS2, java for late CS1 variant. Explore simple but subtle dice game

Nifty Assignments 2007
Media Manipulation -- John Cigas	CS0-CS1, spreadsheet use or basic code. Transfer media data to spreadsheet form to make manipulation easy
ASCIImations -- Dave Reed	CS0-CS2. ASCII animations make fun, creative output with surprisingly simple code (Javascript, Java, ...)
Mindreader -- Raja Sooriamurthi	CS1, CS2. basic logic, map interface (arrays or Hashmaps). Build a surprisingly good computer opponent for a guessing game
Solitaire OOP -- Robert Noonan	CS2, OOP and patterns to explore family of solitaire games
Sliding Blocks Puzzle -- Mike Clancy	CS2, significant recursion and data structures. Recursive and heuristic work to solve the sliding blocks puzzle.
Fire -- Angela Shiflet	CS2, 2-d arrays, simulation. Neat, real-world example simulating spread of fire across a terrain, depending on humidity etc.

Nifty Assignments 2006
Book Code (ISBN) -- John Motil	CS1, basic logic to play with ISBN numbers. Fun because we are surrounded by these numbers .. use them for basic examples
Natural Prestidigitation -- Steve Wolfman	CS1, basic logic, loops, arrays. Appears dull, but has a neat surprise ending.
Breakout -- Eric Roberts	CS1, basic logic, loops using ACM graphics early in the term
Dancing Turtles -- Chris Nevison	CS1, inheritance with dancing turtles and ACM graphics
Solitaire Encryption -- Lester I. McCann	CS2, list manipulations, algorithmic code, file reading. Implements a very novel type of encryption.
Anagram Solver -- Stuart Reges	CS2, recursive backtracking ... a very fun application of recursive search
RSS Reader -- Jerry Cain	CS2, data structures, networking ... neat to implement a client for a real protocol

Nifty Assignments 2005
Test Me -- David Levine	CS0-CS1, students write tests to examine black box code -- nifty and no code writing
Grid Plotter -- Alyce Brady and Pam Cutter	CS1, neat way to learn and practice loop code
Complementary Currency -- Paul Kube	CS1, OOP by creating a currency ... has a community/social aspect among the students
Name Surfer -- Nick Parlante	CS1, loops, arrays, files. Graph baby name data for the last 100 years. Nifty because the data is nifty.
Photomosaics PPT (PDF version) -- Rich Pattis	CS2, create image made of many little images .. but there is a patent on it
Image Lab -- Aaron Gordon	CS2, framework to allow students to write filters on 2-d data and see them applied to images

• Summaries from the proceedings
• Talk Like a Pirate -- Dave Reed
• Minesweeper -- Jeff Lehman
• Card Games John Estell
• Digital Signatures -- Donald Chinn
• Rabbit Hunt -- David Matuszek

• Virtual Pests -- Jeffrey L. Popyack -- a fun CS1 assignment using JavaScript
• Pong -- Grant Braught -- a neat "objects first" assignment
• Lunar Lander -- Stuart Reges -- another fun "objects first" assignment
• HTML Browser -- Scott Dexter and Chaya Gurwitz -- CS2 assignment to render HTML
• Backtracking -- Stephen Weiss -- CS2 all about backtracking
• Random Writer -- Joe Zachary -- a neat CS2 data structure problem

• Blurbs from the proceedings
• Shall We Play A Game? -- Dan Garcia -- A system where students can play around with game playing AI (CS0)
• Neat Javascript projects -- Dave Reed -- Using Javascript as a simple introduction to programming (CS0)
• Adventure -- John Estell -- Using the classic adventure game as a largish project (CS2)
• Sorting Detective -- David Levine -- A fun variation on the old "sorting algorithms" homework  (CS2)
• Boggle -- Julie Zelenski (in cahoots with Owen Astrachan) -- Using the Boggle game to explore recursive algorithms and data structure tradeoffs (CS2)

• Blurbs from the proceedings
• Windows and Regions -- Mike Clancy -- an algorithmic problem using 2-d regions. An excuse to do some linked-list (or ArrayList) type manipulation. Give the students a feel for "window" manager region operations.
• Personality Test -- Stuart Reges -- sort and match the personality data of the class (more fun than it sounds!)
• Quilt -- Julie Zelenski -- a fun, drawing-intensive CS1 project that emphasizes decomp
• Word Ladder -- Owen Astrachan -- a string manipulation puzzle
• Tetris -- Nick Parlante -- a large OOP project, with a tetris board, tetris piece, tetris game, and a pluggable tetris brain . Can be used as a small project where students just write a Tetris brain and plug it in, or can be used as a large CS2 OOP project. The nifty materials include a runnable JTetris.jar sample, and an Instructor's Guide

• Blurbs from the proceedings
• Cat And Mouse -- Mike Clancy -- (CS1) a cute problem which requires non-trivial geometry and algorithms, but can be solved in 100 lines.
• Bagels -- Stuart Reges -- (CS1) a fun game with some algorithmic complexity.
• DNA -- Richard E. Pattis -- (CS1) great first data structures and performance tuning problem.
• Huffman Coding -- Owen Astrachan -- (CS2) decomposition and data structures.
• The Random Sentence Generator -- Julie Zelenski -- (CS2) a fun use of grammars, recursion, and ADTs.
• Darwin's World -- Nick Parlante -- (CS2) a simulator featuring decomposition and a simple interpreter.