Project ideas from Makers' Muse mentors.
Every idea below is shared by an SME mentor. Copy one, discuss it on your free exploration call, and make it yours.
From DNA to RNA: How Epigenetic Regulation Controls Gene Expression
Explore how epigenetic mechanisms turn genes on and off, and how DNA methylation and non-coding RNA shape neuronal function — culminating in a literature review or research proposal.
AI-Based Air Quality Monitoring for School Environments
Use low-cost sensors and a Raspberry Pi to collect air quality data, then apply basic ML techniques to flag unsafe conditions — ending in a working prototype and technical write-up.
How Likes on Instagram Affect Teenage Self-Esteem
Investigate the sociological and psychological effects of social media validation on self-esteem, using existing research and your own survey analysis.
Bio-Inspired Vacuum Pump for Low-Energy Groundwater Extraction
Study how trees draw water upward through transpiration pull, and translate that principle into a low-cost pump design tested on real groundwater depths.
Turning Plastic Waste into 3D-Printer Filament
Explore how waste PET bottles can be cleaned, cut and extruded into usable 3D-printing filament, evaluating quality against commercial filament through structured testing.
Do School Meal Subsidies Improve Attendance? A District-Level Study
Analyse publicly available district education data to test whether subsidy programmes correlate with attendance gains, building core econometrics and data-analysis skills.
Detecting Fake News with Natural Language Processing
Build a text-classification model that flags likely misinformation in news headlines, comparing classical ML approaches against transformer-based methods on a labelled dataset.
Antibiotic Resistance in Household Bacteria: A Home-Lab Study
Culture common household bacteria and test their response to over-the-counter antiseptics, building a foundation in microbiology technique and experimental controls.
Autonomous Obstacle-Avoiding Rover Using Ultrasonic Sensors
Design and program a small wheeled rover that navigates a cluttered room in real time, tuning sensor thresholds and control logic for reliable obstacle avoidance.
Mapping Urban Heat Islands Using Satellite Thermal Data
Use freely available satellite imagery to compare surface temperatures across neighbourhoods, identifying which land-use patterns intensify local heat and why.
Code-Switching Among Bilingual Teens: A Linguistic Survey
Study when and why bilingual students switch between languages in conversation, collecting sample dialogue and coding it against established linguistic frameworks.
The Economics of Street Vendors: An Informal-Market Case Study
Interview and survey local street vendors to model pricing behaviour and supply constraints, drawing connections to informal-economy theory.
Predicting Crop Yield from Weather and Soil Data
Train a regression model on historical weather, soil and yield data to forecast crop output, then evaluate which features matter most for smallholder farmers.