computer science a level coursework ideas

75+ A-Level Computer Science NEA Ideas (and why they’re good)

In A-Level by Think Student Editor March 9, 2019 6 Comments

Computer Science at A-Level is sometimes misunderstood as being a subject where all you do is sit in front of a screen, coding away in Python, trying to build the next Google. While a lot of your time is spent staring at a computer screen, it’s not just about coding.

There is a theory side to Computer Science which plays a big role in determining what grade you get at the end of your two years. Your NEA will take a lot of analysis, planning and trial and error which many students do not expect. That’s why below I’ve provided a long list (in no particular order) of project ideas so at least one step is taken out of the equation. You can combine some of these ideas and create a Frankenstein-type project or maybe just take one and make it your own.

Remember, refer to the mark scheme to ensure you hit as many A-Level Computer Science skills as possible. It’s always worth taking a look at your relevant specification to see which skills you want to showcase, you can find specifications for OCR and AQA here. Without further ado, let’s get to it.

1. Maze Generation Software

There are many different algorithms that you could implement when programming a maze generator (like a lot). So, if you want a list on the different algorithms you could possibly implement, check out this article.

2. Rubik’s Cube Solver

This is probably the hardest project idea on this entire list – in terms of the actual implementation. Creating AI that can actually learn how to solve the Rubik’s cube is very, very difficult.

The good news however, is that I don’t think examiners will expect you to create AI that learns how to solve the Rubik’s cube entirely by itself. Therefore, if you do choose this idea, I highly recommend that you program your AI around one of the many pre-existing algorithms that have been created to solve Rubik’s cubes.

In my opinion, this is the best algorithm for you to base your AI around.

3. Bird Migration Pattern Predictor

If you actually pull this one off, I would eat my foot if you didn’t get top marks (an A*).

For this project, you will need to analyse how birds have migrated across the globe in the past. Then you will need to try and find correlations between migration patterns and geographic weather conditions. From this data, your program could predict future migration patterns depending on different climate changes.

I think a great start for this idea is to read into what web-scraping is and how to do it.

4. Nuclear Power Plant Meltdown Simulation

While programming this project, you would have simulate real world conditions. After you have created this Earth-like environment, you can model the effects that a nuclear power plant meltdown would have on said environment.

You could even add cities to see the affects that radiation would have on them too.

5. Supermarket Stock Management System

Supermarket’s not only need to manage stock, but also staff – both of which, they have lots of. This means that there is most definitely an opportunity for you to make a complex system that could aide a supermarket.

If you do choose this, make sure you read up on how a supermarket actually operates, so the system is suitable. There’s a great document here that should tell you all you need to know about managing a supermarket (and a lot more).

6. Restaurant Point Of Sale (POS) System

A point of sale system is very different to a stock management system (as you would find in a supermarket). The difference is that a point of sale system is used (guess what) at the “point of sale”, meaning staff will use the system at restaurant tables when taking food orders.

Therefore, you must make sure your POS system has an extremely friendly user interface, as customers don’t like waiting around!

7. Chess Playing AI

I don’t think I need to tell you that this is going to be challenging… Therefore, if done right, this could lead to a well earned A* for your NEA.

There are so many resources to help you develop this particular project idea online. So, whenever you get stuck, you will never be far away from help.

8. Image Recognition AI

I reckon this is probably equally as difficult as the Rubik’s cube one – AKA very, very hard.

This idea should be screaming at you: “machine learning and neural networks”. If it’s not, there might be something wrong with you…

Neural Networks + Machine Learning = High Marks

There are loads of free online resources that will help you a ton. However, I highly recommend that you get this book off Amazon.co.uk , it is the best book on getting started with neural networks that I have ever read – just going to have to trust me on this one.

9. Evolution Simulator

This project has the potential to be seriously complicated, however, you could also make it quite simple. It all depends on what’s evolving.

If you are going to simulate how animated stick figures get better at running over many generations, your program is going to be very complex. However, if you are going to simulate how a single-muscled slug can get better traveling between points as quickly as possible then it could be quite simple.

If you’re even considering this project, then you should definitely check out this YouTube playlist (it’s strangely satisfying watching his imaginary creatures evolve).

10. Voice Recognition AI

This project is (obviously) very similar to the image recognition project that was aforementioned. Therefore, this project too, should be screaming “machine learning and neural networks” at you.

I’ve never really programmed a voice recognition AI before, therefore, I can’t really recommend any specific books for you to get (as I can’t be certain of their quality). However, I have done a quick google search and within 5 minutes I can tell that there is shed loads of information on this topic, so on that front – don’t worry.

11. Sales Order Processing System (SOP)

An SOP system should, as the name suggests, manage sales. This means it should control the majority of communications between the warehouse, sales team and the client.

Below are things that a typical SOP system could do:

• Store Order History
• Generate Invoices
• Generate Reports
• Generate Delivery Notes
• Send Reminder Emails

You are tied down a bit with this project, as you do have to make sure a factory could actually use this software. However, there are still many different avenue’s for you take with the types of functionality you decide to implement.

12. Poker Game

For you to do this project, you would have to be fairly confident with networking. This game would allow multiple devices to join a “table” and start playing poker with each other.

Depending on how complex you want your program to be, you could add so many extra features. I think a great extra feature for this project would be to calculate the odds of someone winning per hand. Furthermore, you could also add a computer poker player (where you could definitely implement some AI).

13. DJ Software (Can Mix Music)

This one is definitely a fun project for those of you who have an affection for music. This project would clearly require you to learn a shed load about manipulating audio files, however, if you can pull it off I think you could really make a project that is A* worthy.

You could also build a control system which could implement the software. This might cost a bit of money, but once again, it’s going to make you like you really know what you’re doing.

14. Interactive Circuit Builder

If you want to know what I’m on about, get the free trial of Logicly or just go on YouTube and look at a video of someone else using Logicly.

Assuming you have done that, you will know what I mean by an “interactive circuit builder”. I would say that the most important aspect of this project would have to be the UI. Without a good user interface, the software would not be fit for purpose and you would definitely lose marks.

15. Quiz App

You could either make an offline quiz app or you make a much more complex client-server quiz style app. There is definitely much more opportunity to get an A* with the latter of those options.

If you decide to do a client-server model, I think a real time quiz app would work great – something (even remotely) similar to Kahoot would really stand out.

16. Software for Calculating The Big O of an Algorithm

Examiners will absolutely love this one, but why?

Because in doing this project, you would be making a computer science theory topic actually come to life. Therefore, if you do this project, you are showing to the examiner that you can get a concept off paper and actually make use of it in a real situation.

Besides that, this project is amazingly complex and will certainly provide you with plenty of opportunity’s for you to incorporate A* level concepts into your program.

If you have forgotten what Big O is, don’t worry (you should worry a bit actually) and just go give this a read.

17. Tracking And Monitoring Global Shipping Routes

This project is going to require you to get comfortable with web-scraping and API’s. You will need to be able to gather information about the global whereabouts of cargo ships frequently.

Once you have mastered the back-end tracking, you will need to think of a nice way to present the data. Maybe you could use certain programming libraries to make route representations on a global map?

18. Implementation of Machine Learning To Maximize Profits At An Airport

This could be my favorite project idea on here.

The lengths that airport companies go to when designing the layout of a particular airport is crazy. Everything is where it is for a reason: the route you take to board a plane, where you wait to board and the even where the security is. If you want more information about how airports maximize profits, check this out.

If you choose this project, I think you should do a simulation where people are represented by a particular sprite, shape or whatever you choose, and then they you follow them through the airport. After each day you could track the profits that the airport made.

Now this is where machine learning comes in… you could implement an algorithm that changes the layout of the airport each day and see if profits increase or decrease. Then the program would learn accordingly.

19. 3D First Person Shooter Game

Although many people choose to program a 2D game for their NEA, I think that programming a 3D game is just… better. Programming in 3D makes it so much easier for you to implement A* level programming techniques.

20. Implementation of AI To Model The Effects of Global Warming

Global warming is becoming an ever increasing issue in today’s world – so this project certainly checks the box “assists with a real world problem”.

Anyway, designing a program (using AI) that can attempt to predict what the effects of climate change are going to be on the planet is a great idea. It’s complicated enough, time-consuming enough and definitely “real worldy” enough.

A great place to start with this project is to check out the currently predicted effects of climate change, which you can find here.

21. Encrypted Instant Messaging App

An instant messaging app is one thing, but an encrypted instant messaging app is a whole different thing. This project is great because it just ticks so many boxes. You will be covering encryption and client-server networking in the same project!

Before you start this project, make sure you take out the different types of encryption methods (you can find some here).

22. E-Commerce Web App

Almost every single large company out there now has an online e-commerce website. Therefore, there is going to be plenty of helpful resources out there for you to learn from.

This project will also require some encryption as you will be dealing with payment methods such as debit and credit cards, which are VERY much confidential information.

23. Fitness Monitoring App

Programming a fitness app will allow you to actually interact with the hardware that is on the phone. For example, you could have a fitness app that tracks footsteps, in which case you would need to directly communicate with the phones pedometer.

24. Virtual Flashcard App

This can be a great project, if done right.

You’re going to have to get very good at databases if you do this project as a virtual flashcard app would require crap loads of them. A great example of a virtual flashcard app is Quizlet (I’m sure you have head of it already).

A simple virtual flashcard app should allow a user to:

• Create Folders For Different Subjects
• Create Flashcards Sets For Particular Modules
• Revise Flashcard Sets Effectively.

25. Public Transport Timetable App

Now, I don’t mean just display a PDF image of a pre-existing bus timetable and say “finished!”…

This app should be able to perform web-scraping on live bus and train timetables and display the information is a user friendly way.

Your program could even take two postal codes and calculate the quickest way to get there using a mixture of public transport and walking. It could also return the current price for that specific journey. An example of how this can be implemented is on the Stagecoaches “Plan A Journey” page.

26. Social Networking Platform

You all know what a social networking platform is. I don’t think I need to explain this one to you…

27. Physics Projectile Modelling Tool

If you are a fan of mechanics, this is your project. One of the many reasons this project is so good is because when programming it, you are forced to simulate a real world environment – in the sense that you program in gravity, terrain, air resistance etc.

Furthermore, if you were so inclined, you could very easily transform this project into a game, where you try to hit particular objects using a projectile. Angry birds is a great example of what I mean.

28. Nuclear Power Plant Management System

There’s more to managing a nuclear power plant than you think. Therefore, a nuclear power plant management system can either be super simple or extremely complex depending on what you choose to implement into the system.

I highly recommend you check out this link , it tells you all about the parts of a nuclear power station and you will get a feel for what your system will be managing very quickly.

29. Weather Forecasting Software

There are many paths you could take with this particular project, so it’s really down to what you decide. However, the fundamental core of this project is that you need to at least make an attempt at predicting what the weather will be like tomorrow, the day after or perhaps even a week from now.

You could implement some kind of machine learning algorithm that could compare what your weather prediction was and what the weather actually turned out to be like. From here, the algorithm could adjust the factors that went into making the prediction accordingly.

30. Air Traffic Controller AI

Air traffic controllers are essential to ensure that planes aren’t going to collide when coming in or going out of an airport. However, humans tend to make mistakes – fairly regularly. Maybe an AI would always get it right?

For this project, you would have to create a model of an airport and simulate planes coming in and leaving. Your, AI would ensure that no planes crash… hopefully.

31. Interpreter For Chosen Programming Language

Interpreters convert high level language code into machine code that can be directly processed by the CPU. Furthermore, interpreters normally translate code per line, not all at once.

Although this programming project is challenging, you might struggle to incorporate some of the A* level programming concepts in your code. All I’m saying is that make sure you keep an eye on the marking criteria and don’t forget why you’re doing this project – to get the grades!

32. Internet Speed Tester

There’s more that goes into getting an accurate assessment of your internet bandwidth than you think. Therefore, making an internet speed test is definitely complex enough.

For this project, you will need to add feature to bulk it up. You could maybe try different methods of testing internet speed then compare how accurate each of them are.

33. Secure FTP Server

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. So this project would basically be making software that allows devices to easily transfer files between each other. I know I’ve said this a lot, but, once again, this project is going to be as complex as you make it.

If you choose this project, make sure you don’t just use an FTP library that does everything for you! Try and do as much as possible by yourself.

34. Software To Find The Best Online Deals

For this project, you’re going to need to “scrape” all of the current prices for a particular product off their respective websites. That’s the hard part. Next, you will have to present all of your various comparisons to the user in an easy-to-understand way (and give a conclusion containing where they can find the cheapest price).

A great example of this type of software is the website Trivago.

35. AI Chat Bot

This project would entail you creating a program that can talk to humans as if it was a human too. If there was such thing as a perfect AI chat bot, you shouldn’t be able to distinguish it from a human.

When programming this, you are going to need to be able to program in some sort of artificial intelligence that can learn from previous conversations it had with real people.

Two examples of chat bots that I have seen before are CleverBot,   Eviee, and more recently ChatGPT.

36. Search Engine

Examples of search engines are: Google, Bing and Yahoo. There role is to receive a query from a user and index webpages in accordance with how relevant they are to the particular query. So if you googled “what is a pineapple?”, the idea is that a webpage containing information about pineapples would come up first before information about bananas.

There are many factors to consider when ranking webpages. Possible ranking factors for your SE could be:

• Keyword Frequency
• Image ALT Tags
• How Users Have Interacted With Page Previously.

37. AI Spam Filter

If you’ve ever been directly (or even indirectly) involved in front-end website development or survey development, you will know how big of a problem spam is. Spam messages can take many forms and with each passing year, it is getting more and more difficult to decypher what messages are genuine and which are spam.

This means that for your A-Level Computer Science NEA project, an idea could be to build a spam filter that could be run on an email server, implementing AI and Machine Learning. There is huge potential with this project idea and it is certainly not an easy one to develop!

38. Music Suggestion Tool

We’ve all used and heard of the famous YouTube recommendation service… Every time you go on YouTube, they have an algorithm running that recommends videos based on what they think you’ll like. Why not make your own version but just for music?

You could even tailor the recommendations to what mood the person is in by analysing music videos for particular themes e.g. sad, happy or exiting. If you did decide to go down this route with your NEA project, there is huge potential with this idea for machine learning implantation which would be designed around user feedback (user specifies whether or not the recommendation was good).

There is a great video on how the YouTube recommendation algorithm works here.

39. Graph Plotting Software

If you’re currently studying A-Level Maths or A-Level Further Maths, you will know the importance of graph plotting software is very high. So, there’s demand, why not provide the supply in the form of an NEA computer science project?

Your project could receive a polynomial expression as an input, and output (plot) a visual graphic of that graph… There are many examples of these types of software out there, one that you should check out is GeoGebra .

40. Foreign Language Teacher

This project idea could be made extremely basic, or extremely advanced. However, the fundamental building blocks of this project idea will always be the same; it will assist users in learning a foreign language. I don’t think I need to say too much about this idea, but I would recommend you checkout examples of this type of software such as Babbel or Duolingo.

41. Sat Nav

This NEA project could potentially consist of both web-scrapping and Dijkstra’s algorithm. That is a seriously nice combination!

What is not immediately obvious about this project idea is how much graphical work there is to it – there’s a lot. All I’m saying is that if you do decide to choose a project idea similar to this one, be sure that your graphical skills are very strong!

The most obvious example of software similar to what’s mentioned above is Google Maps, go check it out , if you’re interested.

42. Make Your Own IDE

Now this might seem intimidating at first but hear me out. There’s lots of resources out there to help you out on this project and it allows you to be as creative as you want since you’re the designer. You should be able to run, debug and compile the code.

You can use this video and this article to get you off to a good starting point.

43. 2D Platformer Game

This A-Level NEA project allows you to be as creative and go into as much detail as you want. You could include enemies, randomly generated levels, level editors where the player could make their own levels, multiplayer capabilities etc. One of the more challenging things you could do is include the ability to save your position and access it later.

This project will really get your creative juices flowing as, even if someone has the same idea as you, your games could come out wildly different. You can find many game making tutorials, particularly in Python. You may have heard of the popular library pygame which most games in Python are based on. You can click here to find a tutorial on the basics of pygame.

44. 3D Platformer Game

This will certainly push you into the top marks as it requires a deeper understanding of how to render vector graphics and some maths. Remember, the examiners aren’t worried about how good the game looks, they want to know about the complexity of your code and the skills you showcase within it. Some of the most popular libraries include OpenGL (in C/C++) and Panda 3D (Python).

One of the advantages of doing a 3D game is that the game itself doesn’t actually need to be very complicated. If all goes well, the complexity should come from the 3D rendering, meaning your game could be relatively simple.

45. Revision Aid

This idea is very popular amongst students as they likely already use one, or are taking this opportunity to build their own. This can be anywhere from a flashcards application to a quiz or a game where you have to dodge the wrong answers. See Quizlet or Anki for inspiration.

As with the platformer, the scalability of this project is up to you and how complex you want to make it. Maybe you want to have a competition element where users get a score for how many questions they get right. This project will require a knowledge of databases (e.g. SQL) so if that’s something you’re not good with then there’s still a few more to go.

46. Circuit Simulator

This project is heavily centred around a good-looking GUI, so you will need to have an immense amount of self-control to ensure you don’t throw away hours and hours into a part of the code that barely gets you any marks.

The idea is based around an interactive, online version of a circuit builder, allowing users to connect resistors, lamps and other electrical things I don’t know the names of using wires. You may want to make use of TKinter , a python library, to help with your GUI.

47. Live Chat Forum/Room

This one is pretty self-explanatory but requires a deep knowledge of networking and client-server communications. There are many tutorials you can find online on how to create chat software which is where your creativity will need to come in.

You could think about allowing users to send pictures, create their own group chats, send videos etc. You could even create an AI moderator which censors inappropriate language or detects inappropriate pictures and takes them down.

48. Robotics

This seems quite vague but what I mean is using code to control and communicate with a robot that serves a certain purpose. For example, you could code a robot vacuum to detect walls or the size of the room, where dirt is etc. You can do this through image recognition which by itself is very complex and high level, securing you those marks.

The biggest thing with this is that it requires you to have access to the required hardware so you can check if it works correctly. With the robot vacuum idea, you’re going to need to have a robot vacuum on hand.

49. Business Rota Application

Some of you might have part-time jobs, in which case you will have a better idea of what this is. In order to make sure too many people aren’t working the same shift at once, businesses often have a rota which keeps track of who goes where and at what time.

You could create a database with a simple GUI which considers new employees and their shifts and orders them accordingly. This ensures shifts aren’t clashing or overlapping. You could make this as customisable as you want to where it could apply to any business who have any number of employees working at one time or several related times.

You may need to get into contact with a real business and analyse their current system. That way, you can find anything wrong with it and improve upon it. It also means you have a bit less work to do because you aren’t starting from scratch.

50. Recreate a Classic / Retro Game

This takes away the element of coming up with brand new game logic. Instead, you have the rules laid out for you and you just have to follow them. However, there is a definite danger of copying and pasting premade code as the game already exists. Try to add your own twist to the game.

For example, you could remake Pacman but instead of having the ghosts controlled by AI, you could have them be controlled by other users. Not only is this complex, but it also ensures your code isn’t identical to the original game. There’s a whole library dedicated to retro game making in Python which you can find here .

51. Weather Forecaster

As boring as it sounds, it has the potential to get you into that high grade band. It may require some web-scraping and you might want to build your own site to display this info. You could show the predictions for the weather on this site and you could allow the user to enter their email to be sent alerts or notifications if extreme weather is to occur.

52. GPS App

Here’s your chance to implement all those path-finding algorithms your teacher might have been telling you about (I’m looking at you Dijkstra ). You can implement this in different ways, whether it’s the “Google Maps” approach where the user defines a destination or the “Find My iPhone” approach where the destination is unknown by the user until the app is activated. Maybe they want to put a GPS on their kid’s device or their own device.

53. Meteor Trajectory Simulator

If you like space or physics, this one is for you. You can really go wild with this in terms of the GUI and the back-end code. It will need a lot of complex mathematical formulae in order to function correctly, but it will be worth it when you get that top A-Level grade. That’s why having at least some interest in mathematics will benefit you in this project. You’ll be working with a lot of numbers whether that’s calculating velocity or determining the angle of a meteor.

54. 2D Shooter

This is similar to the platformer except the focus will be on the shooting aspect. You could use AI to control the enemies and maybe include different levels of guns that do different damage. You could even do a boss battle. Refer to NEA idea two to find a pygame tutorial which should give you a good base on making the game.

55. Street Fighter Remake

If you’ve ever played or heard of street fighter, you know what you need to know. However, for the three people at the back who have never heard of it, it’s a 2D fighter game. You can customise this however you want and include power ups, boss fights etc. You may need to look at the code of several other similar games to combine them and make your own.

56. Finding the Shortest Route on the London Underground

This project will allow you to use the path finding algorithms and maybe a website. You can calculate the shortest distance between two stations and calculate the time taken to get there. You will probably need to do some research on JavaScript in order to get the backend of your website working. I’ll link a website tutorial here to get you started.

57. Workshop / Club Booking Timetable

Similar to the rota system, this project will ensure that two people are not booked at the same time on the same day. This will require a knowledge on relational databases, namely SQL which, at this point in your A Level, you should know a bit about. If not, there’s a quick project you can do to get yourself familiar with queries, primary keys, foreign keys etc.

58. Visualising the Spread of a Disease

You could web-scrape here and show on a map of the world and the associated deaths from a certain disease. In other words, you could for example show hot spots for the disease in reds or oranges and leave the others as white. Web scraping is a relatively easy thing to learn and can be extremely powerful, even outside of your A-Level. Here’s a quick tutorial to get you started. The complexity will come from how you present the data you’ve scraped.

59. Plane Seat Booking System

This will be like the workshop booking system in that you need databases to store the customer’s information. You would ensure that one seat is not offered to two people at once. You could even keep track of the details of loyal customers and offer them first class tickets or other deals.

60. Stock Management System

This would be a database which stores the amount of stock a business has. You could produce sales reports for the most popular items or see which items are low in stock. There are many combinations of ways you could output this information (e.g. a report, website, email). Just ensure it is more complex than placing the output in the terminal.

61. Traffic Light Controller

This project entails coding an AI to ensure that cars don’t collide. You could possibly set it up where, if there’s an ambulance, you give it all green lights. You might even want to use image recognition based on a satellite image of a city and gather the locations of the traffic lights on that image. That would really push your grade up as, instead of using a built in library, you can “teach” your AI what traffic lights look like. Find a video tutorial on machine learning in Python here .

62. Coupon Collector

If you’ve ever heard of “Honey”, you’ll know the gist of this project. You will have to scrape the internet for coupons for a certain website specified by the user. The code could automatically test these coupons and output the cheapest one. See number 17 for a website scraping tutorial.

63. Facial Recognition Software

This project seems complex but that’s a good thing if you want the highest grade. This has a variety of purposes as many of you are likely familiar with the face recognition on many phones. Read this article o n how the basics of how to do it in Python and find out more.

Make sure you aren’t just relying on built in libraries to handle the complex algorithms because all those marks will disappear. You have to write the code yourself and typing “import facialRecognition” doesn’t count, as sad as that is.

64. Chess Over Two Computers

Here you can include networking and client-server communication (both of which are references in the A-Level Computer Science specification). There is a possibility to include AI which detects automatically if there is a check or checkmate. This would require you to keep track of the ending positions of each piece and know what constitutes as a check for example. Most turn-based games rely on a sort of algorithm which you can find out more about here .

65. Sudoku Solver

This requires intense programming and AI but will totally be worth it by the end. You could give the user the opportunity to try and solve it themselves at first then, afterwards, give them the answer. You could also set a time limit, you could have a scoreboard, there’s lots of things you could do with it. Also, you may want to have the unsolved puzzle be randomly generated which adds a whole new layer of complexity. Computerphile has a great video on this exact subject in Python.

66. Social Media Specifically for Students in the Same College or University

A social media idea has already been suggested but you may want to make one specifically for your college. The students could input their timetables and the code could suggest other students with the same timetable. That way, they can meet during their mutual break time. You could also include group chats for specific subjects at your college.

67. Fantasy Football Team

Web scraping is going to be a major concept in this project unless you want to hard code in every footballer on every team. You could set up a network where fantasy teams can “play” against each other and winners get more points. The user can customise their own team and earn points. You can then display it in a website or another GUI like TKinter.

68. Planet Orbit Simulator

This one goes out to the physics and maths students again. Allow the user to change the size, direction and colour (why not?) of planets and calculate the trajectory of their new orbit. This would entail many mathematical calculations so, if you like this sort of thing, this is for you. It also gives you the chance to use and render 3D graphics in order to visualise the planets for the user.

Take a look at the game Kerbal Space Program for an advanced implementation of this idea!

69. Pathfinding Comparer

Here, you would test and visualise the efficiency of certain pathfinders in different situations. For example, the user could place certain obstacles between two points and then employ the Dijkstra and A star path finders. You can find what I mean in a tutorial here . There are many, many, many pathfinders you can compare so you can really pick whichever ones you would like. I won’t list them all here, but you can find a some of them through this link .

70. Finding Shortest Path on a College / University Campus

With this project, you would need to create a graph with each node corresponding to the buildings or departments on the map. This would make more sense if you choose a college or university that has a big campus that spans over a large geographical area. It may end up being very useful for those students who have 5 minutes to speed walk all the way across their campus. The heuristic or weight of each edge could be determined by many things (e.g. whether you have to cross a road, if you have to go through a certain building with stairs etc).

71. Solitaire

This popular card game might be simple to code but to add that layer of complexity, you can include the option for an AI to complete the game for the user. It needs to be able to recognise if the game is completable though.

72. Password Manager

Think “LastPass” or “DashLane”. You securely store and encrypt your user’s passwords and, if you wanted to, you could include a password suggestion element where the application offers a potential strong password to the user. This takes away the need for the user to memorise their passwords and think of a way to make it stronger. You can find an example here and extra info here .

73. Simple Board Game

You might want to come up with your own board game or copy another anywhere from Scrabble to Monopoly. This will take a lot of time and consideration into how you would like it to work. You may want to set up a tutorial or make it multiplayer against other humans (this might be your chance to include AI)

74. Cash register

A cash register would be great as you can base it off pre-existing cash registers in terms of the functionality. It offers a web version of a cash register that would be used by small businesses. This means you could contact small businesses in your area and cater to their needs. It may track sales, inventory and checkout credit cards. The options for what you want the cash register to do are completely up to you and your client’s needs.

This kind of goes under the retro games column however, there is the potential for AI to be implemented. You could program the AI to play the most efficient move and get the most points. The best way to go about this is to code the game by itself first the add the AI afterwards. You can even apply a competitive element by having a score system via relational database or multiplayer functionality.

76. Pacman Recreation

You can use AI to control the ghosts and, to really push yourself, you can add difficulty levels to these ghosts. Maybe the longer/more a user plays, the harder the ghosts get. You can increase their difficulty by making them faster or making them “smarter”. This would require path-finders to find the shortest path from the ghost to the player.

The Importance of Mark Schemes and Specifications

The mark schemes and specifications for A-Level Computer Science will be your best friends throughout your whole coursework experience. Though they can sometimes be vague, you should be working closely with them to ensure your project hits all the points you need so you can collect those marks. Good luck!

• AQA Computer Science Mark Scheme
• OCR Computer Science Mark Scheme

nice project

the exemplar is motion control and thats bares hard

bruh what do i put as stakeholders for the rubiks ai

Your idea is brilliant and many puzzle solvers are going to really benefit from your programme, and for that reason, I’m out.

Hi i was just wondering how i could make the (“visualizing the spread of a disease”) program to show a large amount of skill as I worry that there wont be enough coding involved to showcase a lot of skill.

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• A-Level Computer Science

 8 Revision Tips to Achieve A* in A-Level Computer Science

If you manage your study resources effectively, you can see a boost in your exam scores.  I mplement these 10 practical tips and elevate your Computer Science game!

Tip #1: Exam Essentials

Navigating the terrain of your A-Level Computer Science exam starts with a clear understanding of its structure. Delve into A-Level Computer Science past papers to identify recurring patterns. Pay attention to the types of questions , the allocation of marks, and any particular themes emphasised. 

Knowing the lay of the land equips you to tailor your revision to the specific demands of the exam.

Unravel the mystery behind how your answers are evaluated. Study the marking criteria provided by your exam board meticulously. Identify the key elements examiners look for in top-scoring responses. 

This insight allows you to direct your focus towards crafting responses that align with what earns maximum marks.

Learn from the errors of the past to secure a flawless performance in the future. Analyse common pitfalls and mistakes made by students in previous exams. Whether it’s misinterpreting a question or neglecting key details, recognising these blunders arms you with the vigilance to sidestep them. 

Sharpen your awareness and enhance your exam strategy by learning from the mistakes of others.

Tip #2: Strategic Study Techniques

Dynamically engage with your study material by incorporating interactive learning tools. Seek out online platforms, educational apps , or interactive tutorials that cater to A-Level Computer Science. Visualise complex concepts, practice coding interactively, and reinforce your understanding through hands-on activities. Embracing these tools transforms your study sessions into engaging experiences, enhancing comprehension and retention.

Mastering coding isn’t just about theory; it’s about practical application . Dedicate focused time to hands-on coding practice regularly. Solve problems, work on projects, and challenge yourself with coding exercises. 

The more you code, the more confident and adept you become. Through doing so, you solidify your understanding of algorithms , syntax , and problem-solving —the pillars of success in A-Level Computer Science.

Bridge the gap between theory and real-world relevance by exploring practical applications of your Computer Science concepts. Investigate how the principles you’re learning manifest in real-world scenarios and industries. 

This deepens your understanding and cultivates an appreciation for the practical implications of your knowledge. Connecting theory to application enhances both your academic performance and your readiness for the tech landscape beyond the classroom.

Tip #3: Algorithmic Mastery

Demystify the intricacies of complex algorithms by adopting a systematic approach. Begin by breaking down larger algorithms into manageable components. Focus on understanding each step before tackling the entire process. 

Use visual aids, pseudocode, or flowcharts to simplify the algorithmic structure . This step-by-step deconstruction enhances comprehension and lays the foundation for mastering even the most intricate algorithms.

Don’t be afraid to seek help from peers or online communities. Learning to navigate and troubleshoot code errors is a crucial aspect of algorithmic mastery, ensuring your programs run smoothly and efficiently.

In the world of algorithms, efficiency is key . Learn to assess the time and space complexity of your code. Strive for solutions that not only work but work optimally. Embrace techniques like algorithmic analysis and Big-O notation to evaluate and improve the efficiency of your algorithms. 

Prioritising efficiency not only enhances your problem-solving skills but also positions you as a proficient and resourceful A-Level Computer Science student.

Tip #4: Industry Awareness

Stay ahead of the curve by integrating current tech trends into your study routine. Follow reputable tech news sources , blogs, and industry publications to stay informed about the latest advancements. Understanding the evolving landscape equips you to contextualise your studies within the broader industry, enhancing the relevance and practicality of your knowledge.

Computer Science is a dynamic field, constantly evolving with emerging technologies. Embrace the learning opportunities presented by new trends such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, or cybersecurity. Explore how these technologies integrate with existing concepts in your syllabus. By staying abreast of emerging trends, you position yourself as a forward-thinking student ready to tackle the challenges of the evolving tech landscape.

Tip #5: Time Management

Stick to Study Schedules

Craft a dynamic study schedule that adapts to the demands of your A-Level Computer Science curriculum. Allocate specific time blocks for different topics based on their complexity and your familiarity with them. Create a balance between focused study sessions and breaks to maintain optimal productivity. A well-structured and adaptable study schedule ensures you cover all essential areas while preventing burnout.

Prioritise High-Impact Topics

Identify and prioritise high-impact topics that carry more weight in exams or align with your career goals . Focus on mastering fundamental concepts before delving into more specialised areas. By allocating extra time to crucial topics, you ensure a strong foundation that can positively impact your overall performance. Strategic prioritisation enhances efficiency and effectiveness in your study approach.

Balance Revision and Practise

Strike a harmonious balance between revision and practical application. While revisiting theory is crucial, applying your knowledge through practise is equally vital . Allocate dedicated time for reviewing concepts and engaging in hands-on coding or problem-solving exercises. This dual approach not only reinforces your understanding but also hones your practical skills, creating a well-rounded preparation strategy.

Tip #6: Computer Science Exam Simulation

Prepare for exam day by recreating the testing environment during your study sessions. Mimic the time constraint s, silence, and other conditions in the exam hall. This simulation helps acclimate you to the pressure of timed assessments, enhancing your ability to perform at your best when it matters most.

Explore reputable platforms that offer mock tests specifically designed for A-Level Computer Science exams. Many educational websites and exam boards provide sample papers or simulated tests. Utilise these resources to familiarise yourself with the exam format, question types, and time constraints. Regular mock tests not only assess your knowledge but also refine your exam-taking strategy.

After each mock test, conduct a thorough analysis of your performance. Identify areas of strength and weakness, paying attention to recurring mistakes or challenges. Utilise feedback from mock exams to tailor your A-Level revision strategy . Addressing weaknesses head-on and building on strengths ensures that you enter the actual exam with a refined approach, maximising your chances of success.

Tip #7: Collaborative Learning

Harness the power of collaboration by forming study groups with fellow Computer Science enthusiasts. Join or create study sessions where you can discuss concepts, share insights, and clarify doubts. Collaborative learning not only provides emotional support but also exposes you to different perspectives, reinforcing your understanding of complex topics.

Enhance your coding skills by engaging in peer code review sessions. Exchange code snippets with classmates or online peers and provide constructive feedback . Analysing others’ code and receiving feedback on your own promotes a deeper understanding of coding principles and best practices. The collective knowledge of the group contributes to a more comprehensive learning experience.

Extend your learning beyond the classroom by participating in online communities dedicated to Computer Science. Platforms like forums , social media groups , or coding communities offer valuable insights, discussions, and shared resources. Actively contribute to these communities by asking questions, sharing your knowledge, and connecting with peers and professionals. Building an online network not only enriches your learning journey but also provides ongoing support and inspiration.

Tip #8: Resource Utilisation

Tap into a wealth of knowledge by exploring recommended books and websites in the field of Computer Science. Consult textbooks endorsed by your curriculum , and supplement your learning with authoritative online resources. Curate a list of reliable websites, blogs, and forums where you can access comprehensive information, tutorials, and expert insights to enrich your understanding of key concepts.

Gain practical experience and contribute to your portfolio by engaging with open-source projects. Participating in collaborative coding projects not only strengthens your coding skills but also exposes you to real-world application scenarios. Platforms like GitHub host a myriad of open-source projects where you can collaborate with other developers, learn best practices, and showcase your abilities to potential employers or educators.

Explore online learning platforms that offer specialised A-Level Computer Science courses. Platforms like Study Mind provide access to courses taught by industry professionals and renowned institutions. These platforms often offer a structured curriculum, interactive assignments, and opportunities for hands-on projects, allowing you to supplement your traditional studies with practical, industry-relevant learning experiences.

The Final Verdict

As you step into exams, carry the power of personalised revision. Let understanding, connection, and critical insight be your guide. Your A* in A-Level Computer Science awaits — a testament to your mastery. Ready for a deeper dive? Elevate your understanding with an expert A-Level Computer Science tutor . Your path to excellence starts now.

Are these revision tips applicable to all computer Science courses?

Yes, the provided revision tips are designed to be universally applicable across various computer Science courses. Whether you’re studying programming, databases, or hardware, these strategies cater to the core principles and practices, ensuring comprehensive preparation for success.

How much time should I dedicate to each revision tip?

The time dedication for each tip varies based on personal learning preferences and the complexity of the topic. It’s recommended to create a personalised schedule, allocating sufficient time to understand and apply each tip thoroughly. Prioritise areas where you feel the need for deeper understanding and spend more time on those.

Can these tips be effective for last-minute A-Level Computer Science revision?

While early and consistent revision is ideal, these tips can still prove beneficial for last-minute preparation. Focus on high-impact strategies like concept summaries, practice tests, and debugging techniques. Prioritise key concepts to maximise effectiveness during shorter timeframes.

What if I find certain A-Level computer science topics challenging to grasp?

If you encounter challenging topics, consider seeking additional resources such as online tutorials, textbooks, or reaching out to peers and instructors for clarification. Form study groups to enhance your understanding collaboratively. Persistence and diverse learning approaches can help conquer challenging concepts.

Should I exclusively rely on these tips or incorporate other study methods?

These tips serve as a strong foundation for effective revision, but it’s advisable to complement them with other proven study methods. Experiment with diverse techniques like group discussions, teaching concepts to others, and exploring real-world applications to gain a well-rounded understanding of computer studies.

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As the mark scheme is written to cover a diverse range of projects students often find it difficult to understand how the mark scheme can be applied to their work. For example, what does "amenable to a computational approach" mean for a video game? These guides show students how they should approach their writing to ensure they can achieve the highest mark.

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How to write your AQA A Level Computer Science Project Part 1 - Getting Started.

It’s time of year again, time to think about your A Level Computing project. Hopefully, in your first year, your teachers will have given you all the skills you need to begin to tackle this. If they haven’t – then they’ll probably start with this early on in your second year. You should be familiar with

Programming in your language of choice (C#, VB.NET , Python etc).

Object Oriented Programming (OOP).

Database design and programming with SQL.

Server-side web programming using XML and JSON.

But now you need to start your project. If you use the summer wisely you should be able to get a good start on the outline of your analysis, design and programming. But how to begin? Well, this series of articles should give you an idea of how to start, what order to do things in, what you need for your write up and when things are due in by.

Firstly, Get A Client!

This is the hard bit. Most people attempting a computing project will

Have no idea for a project but have a client who does.

Have an idea for a project but no client.

Firstly, you need a client. Your client needs to be a real person who you can talk to, ideally an adult who has a genuine need for a software solution to a problem they have.

Now, you need a real client because one of the things you need to prove is evidence of ‘continual interaction with your client”. This means

You either need to have face to face interviews which you need to sign and date.

Evidence of emails going back and forward between the two of you.

Your client needs to evaluate the program at the end.

This should show you asking questions about how the program works, or what it is going to look like.

If your ‘client’ is a classmate, or a friend in another school you are going to run into problems, because you might need to ask them something, and they might not answer quickly enough.

More than likely though when you need them to carry out an evaluation in march they

Have forgotten what they asked you to do, so give you a poor evaluation which could impact on your marks.

Are too busy with their own revision for their own A levels to be able to help.

The best clients are your teachers, other members of staff at your school or college, or family friends with a genuine business need.

Next, Get a Project!

After getting a client, this is obviously the next hardest thing. Common mistakes that people make when choosing a project are:

Picking a project that is too complicated to be able to solve in time.

Picking a project where the client has asked for too many things to be achieved in time.

Picking a project that is too simple for A level.

Many years ago, a student wanted to write a program that would connect to the Google Webservice API. Knowing that this would be a challenge, as it required knowledge of XML programming, I asked the student to write a small program to connect to a web service over the summer and display the code in the console.

After 5 weeks of trying and failing, the student admitted defeat, and we worked out a simpler program to do.

Another student had a client who wanted his program to do about 25 different things, from saving data to files to accessing a database. After reviewing this list of objectives, we stripped things down to a more manageable list of about 12.

Another student wanted to build a database to add, update and store some simple information. This project was too simple, so we worked out some programmatic complexity, involving writing a custom encryption algorithm to encrypt and decrypt data going into and out of the database.

The main thing is talk with your teacher SOONER rather than LATER, discuss ideas with them as they will be able to point you in the right direction. They might also have some project ideas in their back pocket – I certainly had 9 backup projects, of various degrees of complexity should any student get stuck.

OK, I’ve got a project, I’ve got a client – Now What.

The hardest part of any project is the beginning. You CANNOT go charging into things by writing your code in Main() and putting your head down and going for it!

You need to do a little bit of thinking first. If you don’t it’s going to go horribly, horribly wrong.

Step 1 – Start your interviews

Your client is key. Start to ask them questions (and don’t forget to keep the emails, or write up the interview answers)

If they want to store information – then you’re looking at text files or a database.

If it’s a database – what categories of information are they storing – that’s your tables.

What information is coming in and out? That’s your SQL queries.

If it’s a text file – you need to read and write code, usually this would be in a FileIO Object, so there’s a class for you.

Once they tell you what the program is going to do – there are some functions or object behaviour for you

Step 2 – start to look at your program structure

What bits is your program going to need?

If it’s a website – you’ll need HTML pages and possibly some form of scripting.

If it’s a database - what software will you use – I recommend PHP MySQL or SQLite ( DO NOT use Access).

How many tables will you need? Can you identify the primary keys, foreign keys and any fields? (you can always add more later)?

Can you identify any classes?

Can you identify any object behaviour?

Can you identify any functions – things your program needs to do?

Once you have some of these you can start to put some ideas down on paper – in your analysis document and your design document.

Don’t worry – they don’t need to be the finished article – AQA accepts that your design will be ongoing, so don’t be surprised if you are still putting things in your design document in the February half term.

Step 3 – start some simple programming

In your IDE of choice create a new program and give it a name. It’s a simple step, but the first one.

If you know some of the tables you need, create them and a few columns.

Put in no more than 10 records – you don’t get marks for having hundreds of rows of data – just enough to prove your project works.

Then you need to get your program to talk to your database – get that to work with a simple SQL script that executes SELECT * from tblLogin script.

If you are building a website – start with the homepage, and think about a colourscheme and house style.

Start to look at menus and page navigation options.

Create a simple class that can do something – connect to a database, print to a file, print out a menu to a console.

If a windows form, start to build the start form and add your buttons and event handlers.

Many students don’t know where to start so they don’t. Always start with a simple, small task that you can achieve. The other steps quickly follow.

In all honesty, if you are going to build a website or webform, you are entering a layer of extra complexity by event driven programming, where things happen in the wrong order.

Keep everything simple by writing a console program – as it’s all about what your program DOES, not what it looks like!

Step 4 – begin your Write Up!

You’ve barely started here, but three are certain sections in your Analysis and design documents that you can start to complete.

In your analysis you can:

Research other programs that do something similar to yours.

Find out who is going to be the end user.

Work out some of the objectives (THIS IS CRITICAL and will be covered in a later article).

Record your interviews.

I can show you what needs to go into the rest of your analysis, as well as your design, testing and evaluation documents.

Step 5 – Keep an Eye on the time!

Let’s work backwards!

Your printed-out project needs to be written up and marked by your school and college.

It then physically needs to be with AQA on May 15th.

Which means your school or college will need to post them by about May 12 to guarantee they meet the deadline.

However, your school also needs to deal with any appeals that you might lodge (if you are not happy with marking). They need to find someone, not linked to your school, get your project to them, allow time for the project to be remarked, and your project to be returned to your school.

This should take about 10 days, so now we are at beginning of May

Your project needs to be marked by your teachers at your school. Each one of these needs to be read, marked and commented on, and will take about 2 weeks.

We are now at Mid April (roughly) which is when your project should be handed in.

However that is usually smack in the middle of the Easter Holidays, so most schools set a deadline of the last day of term

This is the beginning of April.

This is when your project needs to be handed in, finished, printed out. You will not submit your working program, all the evidence that the thing works is in your source code, your testing and your evaluation.

Don’t forget also that your project will be running in the background. It is worth 20% of your A Level, which is why you only sit two exam papers.

At the same time you will be studying your other A levels, as well as the Second Year Computer Science Theory.

If you leave it too late to get started you’ll run into problems.

I hope you found this useful, in other articles, we will go into what is required for the various sections of the final write up, how your project is marked and how to get into the higher mark bands for your writeup!

I can show you what is required for the rest of your writeup, so why not make a booking and see how I can help!

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AS and A-level Computer Science

• Specification
• Planning resources
• Teaching resources
• Assessment resources
• Introduction
• Specification at a glance
• 3.1 Fundamentals of programming
• 3.2 Fundamentals of data structures
• 3.3 Systematic approach to problem solving
• 3.4 Theory of computation
• 3.5 Fundamentals of data representation
• 3.6 Fundamentals of computer systems
• 3.7 Fundamentals of computer organisation and architecture
• 3.8 Consequences of uses of computing
• 3.9 Fundamentals of communication and networking
• 4.1 Fundamentals of programming
• 4.2 Fundamentals of data structures
• 4.3 Fundamentals of algorithms
• 4.4 Theory of computation
• 4.5 Fundamentals of data representation
• 4.6 Fundamentals of computer systems
• 4.7 Fundamentals of computer organisation and architecture
• 4.8 Consequences of uses of computing
• 4.9 Fundamentals of communication and networking
• 4.10 Fundamentals of databases
• 4.11 Big Data
• 4.12 Fundamentals of functional programming
• 4.13 Systematic approach to problem solving

4.14 Non-exam assessment - the computing practical project

• Scheme of assessment
• Non-exam assessment administration
• General administration

Purpose of the project

The project allows students to develop their practical skills in the context of solving a realistic problem or carrying out an investigation. The project is intended to be as much a learning experience as a method of assessment; students have the opportunity to work independently on a problem of interest over an extended period, during which they can extend their programming skills and deepen their understanding of computer science.

The most important skill that should be assessed through the project is a student's ability to create a programmed solution to a problem or investigation. This is recognised by allocating 42 of the 75 available marks to the technical solution and a lower proportion of marks for supporting documentation to reflect the expectation that reporting of the problem, its analysis, the design of a solution or plan of an investigation and testing and evaluation will be concise.

Types of problem/investigation

Students are encouraged to choose a problem to solve or investigate that will interest them and that relates to a field that they have some knowledge of. There are no restrictions on the types of problem/investigation that can be submitted or the development tools (for example programming language) that can be used. The two key questions to ask when selecting a problem/investigation are:

• Does the student have existing knowledge of the field, or are they in a position to find out about it?
• Is a solution to the problem/investigation likely to give the student the opportunity to demonstrate the necessary degree of technical skill to achieve a mark that reflects their potential?

Some examples of the types of problem to solve or investigate are:

• a simulation for example, of a business or scientific nature, or an investigation of a well-known problem such as the game of life
• a solution to a data processing problem for an organisation, such as membership systems
• the solution of an optimisation problem, such as production of a rota, shortest-path problems or  route finding
• a computer game
• an application of artificial intelligence
• a control system, operated using a device such as an Arduino board
• a website with dynamic content, driven by a database back-end
• an app for a mobile phone or tablet
• an investigation into an area of computing, such as rendering a three-dimensional world on screen
• investigating an area of data science using, for example, Twitter feed data or online public data sets
• investigating machine learning algorithms.

There is an expectation that within a centre, the problems chosen by students to solve or investigate will be sufficiently different to avoid the work of one student informing the work of another because they are working on the same problem or investigation. Teachers will be required to record on the Candidate Record Form for each student that they have followed this guideline. If in any doubt on whether problems chosen by students have the potential to raise this issue, please contact your AQA adviser.

Table 1 and Table 2 show the technical skills and coding styles required for an A-level standard project. If a problem/investigation is selected that is not of A-level standard then the marks available in each section will be restricted.

Project documentation structure

The project is assessed in five sections. The table below lists the maximum available mark for each section of the project:

For marking purposes, the project documentation should be presented in the order indicated in the table above. The table does not imply that students are expected to follow a traditional systems life cycle approach when working on their projects, whereby a preceding stage must be completed before the next can be tackled. It is recognised that this approach is unsuited to the vast majority of project work, and that project development is likely to be an iterative process, with earlier parts of the project being revisited as a result of discoveries made in later parts. Students should be encouraged to start prototyping and writing code early on in the project process. A recommended strategy is to tackle the critical path early in the project development process. The critical path is the part of the project that everything else depends on for a working system or a complete investigation result to be achieved.

Using a level of response mark scheme

Level of response mark schemes are broken down into a number of levels, each of which has a descriptor. The descriptor for the level shows the average performance for the level. There are a range of marks in each level. The descriptor for the level represents a typical mid-mark performance in that level.

Before applying the mark scheme to a student’s project, read it through and annotate it to show the qualities that are being looked for. You can then apply the mark scheme.

Step 1 Determine a level

Start at the lowest level of the mark scheme and use it as a ladder to see whether the performance in that section of the project meets the descriptor for that level. The descriptor for the level indicates the different qualities that might be seen in the student’s work for that level. If it meets the lowest level then go to the next one and decide if it meets this level, and so on, until you have a match between the level descriptor and the work. With practice and familiarity you will find you will be able to quickly skip through the lower levels of the mark scheme.

When assigning a level you should look at the overall quality of the work rather than any small or specific parts where the student has not performed quite as the level descriptor. If the work covers different aspects of different levels of the mark scheme you should use a best fit approach for defining the level and then use the variability of the response to help decide the mark within the level. ie if the response is predominantly level 3 with a small amount of level 4 material it would be placed in level 3 but be awarded a mark near the top of the level because of the level 4 content.

Step 2 Determine a mark

Once you have assigned a level you need to decide on the mark. The exemplar materials used for standardisation will help. This work will have been awarded a mark by AQA. You can compare your student’s work with the exemplar to determine if it is the same standard, better or worse. You can then use this to allocate a mark for the work based on AQA's mark on the exemplar.

You may well need to read back through the work as you apply the mark scheme to clarify points and assure yourself that the level and the mark are appropriate.

Work which contains nothing of relevance to the project area being assessed must be awarded no marks for that area.

Marking criteria

Analysis (9 marks), documented design (12 marks), technical solution (42 marks), completeness of solution (15 marks), techniques used (27 marks).

Select the band, 1, 2 or 3 with level of demand description that best matches the techniques and skill that the student’s program attempts to cover. The emphasis is on what the student has actually achieved that demonstrates proficiency at this level rather than what the student has set out to use and do but failed to demonstrate, eg because of poor execution. Check the proficiency demonstrated in the program. If the student fails to demonstrate proficiency at the initial level of choice, drop down a level to see if what the student has done demonstrates proficiency at this level for the lower demand until a match is obtained. Table 1 is indicative of the standard required and is not to be treated as just a list of things for students to select from and to be automatically credited for including in their work.

As indicated above, having selected the appropriate level for techniques used and proficiency in their use, the exact mark to award should be determined based upon:

• the extent to which the criteria for the mark band have been achieved
• the quality of the coding style that the student has demonstrated (see Table 2 for exemplification of what is expected)
• the effectiveness of the solution.

Example technical skills

Table 1: example technical skills.

Note that the contents of Table 1 are examples, selected to illustrate the level of demand of the technical skills that would be expected to be demonstrated in each group. The use of alternative algorithms and data models is encouraged. If a project cannot easily be marked against Table 1 (for example, a project with a considerable hardware component) then please consult your AQA non-exam assessment Adviser or provide a full explanation of how you have arrived at the mark for this section when submitting work for moderation.

Table 2: Coding styles

The descriptions in Table 2 are cumulative, ie for a program to be classified as excellent it would be expected to exhibit the characteristics listed as excellent, good and basic not just those listed as excellent.

Testing (8 marks)

Evidence for the testing section may be produced after the system has been fully coded or during the coding process. It is expected that tests will either be planned in a test plan or that the tests will be fully explained alongside the evidence for them. Only carefully selected representative samples are required.

Evaluation (4 marks)

Project tasks that are not of a-level standard.

If the task (problem or investigation) selected for a project is not of A-level standard, mark the project against the criteria given, but adjust, the mark awarded downwards by two marking levels (two marks in the case of evaluation) in each section for all but the technical solution. You should have already taken the standard into account for this, by directly applying the criteria. For example, if a student had produced a 'fully or nearly fully articulated design of a real problem describing how solution is to be structured/is structured'. This would, for an A-level standard project, achieve a mark in Level Four for Documented Design (10-12 marks). If the problem selected was too simple to be of A-level standard but the same criteria had been fulfilled, shift the mark awarded down by two levels, into Level Two, an award of 4-6 marks. If a downward shift by two levels is not possible, then a mark in the lowest level should be awarded.

Guide to non-exam assessment documentation

Students are expected to:

• produce a clear statement that describes the problem area and specific problem that is being solved/investigated
• outline how they researched the problem
• state for whom the problem is being solved/investigated
• provide background in sufficient detail for a third party to understand the problem being solved/investigated
• produce a numbered list of measurable, "appropriate" specific objectives, covering all required functionality of the solution or areas of investigation (Appropriate means that the specific objectives are single purpose and at a level of detail that is without ambiguity.)
• report any modelling of the problem that will inform the Design stage, for example a graph/network model of Facebook connections or an E-R model.

A fully scoped analysis is one that has:

• researched the problem thoroughly
• has clearly defined the problem being solved/investigated
• omitted nothing that is relevant to subsequent stages
• statements of objectives which clearly and unambiguously identify the scope of the project
• modelled the problem for the Design stage where this is possible and necessary.

Students are expected to articulate their design in a manner appropriate to the task and with sufficient clarity for a third party to understand how the key aspects of the solution/investigation are structured and on what the design will rely, eg use of numerical and scientific package libraries, data visualisation package library, particular relational database and/or web design framework. The emphasis is on communicating the design; therefore it is acceptable to provide a description of the design in a combination of diagrams and prose as appropriate, as well as a description of algorithms, SQL, data structures, database relations as appropriate, and using relevant technical description languages, such as pseudo-code. Where design of a user interface is relevant, screen shots of actual screens are acceptable.

Technical solution

Students should provide program listing(s) that demostrate their technical skill. The program listing(s) should be appropriately annotated and self-documenting (an approach that uses meaningful identifiers, with well structured code that minimises instances where program comments are necessary).

Students should present their work in a way that will enable a third party to discern the quality and purpose of the coding. This could take the form of:

• an overview guide which amongst other things includes the names of entities such as executables, data filenames/urls, database names, pathnames so that a third party can, if they so desire, run the solution/investigation
• explanations of particularly difficult-to-understand code sections; a careful division of the presentation of the code listing into appropriately labelled sections to make navigation as easy as possible for a third party reading the code listing.

Students must provide and present in a structured way for example in tabular form, clear evidence of testing. This should take the form of carefully selected and representative samples, which demonstrate the robustness of the complete, or nearly complete, solution/thoroughness of investigation and which demonstrate that the requirements of the solution/investigation have been achieved. The emphasis should be on producing a representative sample in a balanced way and not on recording every possible test and test outcome. Students should explain the tests carried out alongside the evidence for them. This could take the form of:

• an introduction and overview
• the test performed
• its purpose if not self-evident
• the test data
• the expected test outcome
• the actual outcome with a sample of the evidence, for example screen shots of before and after the test, etc, sampled in order to limit volume.

Students should consider and assess how well the outcome meets its requirements. Students should obtain independent feedback on how well the outcome meets its requirements and discuss this feedback. Some of this feedback could be generated during prototyping. If so, this feedback, and how/why it was taken account must be presented and referenced so it can be found easily.

Students should also consider and discuss how the outcome could be improved more realistically if the problem/investigation were to be revisited.

Assessment objective breakdown for non-exam assessment

Programmes & Qualifications

Cambridge international as & a level computer science (9618).

• Syllabus overview

Cambridge International AS & A Level Computer Science encourages learners to meet the needs of higher education courses in computer science as well as twenty-first century digital employers. It encourages leaders to think creatively, through applying practical programming solutions, demonstrating that they are effective uses of technology.

Learners develop computational thinking & programming skills to solve computer science problems. Cambridge International AS and A Level Computer Science will help learners develop a range of skills such as thinking creatively, analytically, logically and critically. They will also be able to appreciate the ethical issues that arise with current and emerging computing technologies.

The syllabus year refers to the year in which the examination will be taken.

• -->2021 - 2023 Syllabus update (PDF, 166KB)
• -->2021 Syllabus Legacy Notice (PDF, 103KB)
• -->2024 - 2025 Syllabus update (PDF, 144KB)
• -->2026 Syllabus Legacy Notice (PDF, 726KB)

Syllabus support

• -->2023 - 2025 Grade Description A Level (PDF, 187KB)
• -->2023 - 2025 Grade Description AS Level (PDF, 169KB)
• -->Support for Computer Science (PDF, 1MB)

Syllabus updates

We revise qualifications regularly to make sure that they continue to meet the needs of learners, schools and higher education institutions around the world. The 2021-2023 syllabus reflects current thinking in industry and higher education, including the introduction of Robotics and Artificial intelligence (A.I).

How has the syllabus changed?

• The 2021-2023 syllabus provides opportunities for students to demonstrate practical programming skills.
• We have introduced a third Assessement Objective where students will be asked to design, program and evaluate computer systems that solve problems, and make reasoned judgements about them.
• Computational thinking
• Programming paradigms
• Communication
• Computer architecture and hardware
• Data representation and structures
• We have added a list of command words and their meanings to help learners know what’s expected of them in the exam.

How has the assessment changed?

• For the AS Level qualification, each component is 50% of the total marks.
• For the A Level qualification, each component is 25% of the total marks.
• To allow for practical application time, we have increased the duration of Paper 4.
• We have introduced changes to programming languages, adding Visual Basic (console mode), Python and Java.
• We have removed Pascal/Delphi (console mode).

When do these changes take place?

The updated syllabus is for examination in June and November 2021, 2022 and 2023. Please see the 2021-2023 syllabus above for full details.

Coming soon

We are developing a wide range of support to help you plan and teach the 2021-2023 syllabus.

Look out for resources including a Scheme of work, Example candidate responses, Teacher and Learner guides, all of which will be available from April 2019 onwards through School Support Hub .

Endorsed resources

Develop computational thinking and ensure full coverage of the revised Cambridge International AS & A Level Computer Science syllabus with this comprehensive Student’s Book written by experienced authors and examiners.

Detailed descriptions of concepts, reinforced with examples that outline complex subject matter in a clear way. Alongside fundamental definitions, higher-level programming skills are developed through the explanation of processes and consolidated by practical exam-style questions.

Read more on the Cambridge University Press website

Important notices

For some subjects, we publish grade descriptions to help understand the level of performance candidates’ grades represent.

We paused the publication of grade descriptions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the temporary changes to the awarding standard in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

As the awarding standard has now returned to the pre-pandemic standard, we are working to produce up-to-date grade descriptions for most of our general qualifications. These will be based on the awarding standards in place from June 2023 onwards.

Check the Submit for Assessment page and the samples database for information and guidance on submitting moderated and examined work using Submit for Assessment.

School Support Hub

Teachers at registered Cambridge schools can unlock over 30 000 teaching and learning resources to help plan and deliver Cambridge programmes and qualifications, including Schemes of work, Example candidate responses, Past papers, Specimen paper answers, as well as digital and multimedia resources.

Schemes of work

Example responses, past papers, specimen paper answers.

Register your interest in becoming a Cambridge School

Stay up to date

Sign up for updates about changes to the syllabuses you teach

• Past papers, examiner reports and specimen papers
• Published resources

CS50's Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python

Learn to use machine learning in Python in this introductory course on artificial intelligence.

Associated Schools

Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

What you'll learn.

Graph search algorithms

Reinforcement learning

Machine learning

Artificial intelligence principles

How to design intelligent systems

How to use AI in Python programs

Course description

AI is transforming how we live, work, and play. By enabling new technologies like self-driving cars and recommendation systems or improving old ones like medical diagnostics and search engines, the demand for expertise in AI and machine learning is growing rapidly. This course will enable you to take the first step toward solving important real-world problems and future-proofing your career.

CS50’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python explores the concepts and algorithms at the foundation of modern artificial intelligence, diving into the ideas that give rise to technologies like game-playing engines, handwriting recognition, and machine translation. Through hands-on projects, students gain exposure to the theory behind graph search algorithms, classification, optimization, reinforcement learning, and other topics in artificial intelligence and machine learning as they incorporate them into their own Python programs. By course’s end, students emerge with experience in libraries for machine learning as well as knowledge of artificial intelligence principles that enable them to design intelligent systems of their own.

Enroll now to gain expertise in one of the fastest-growing domains of computer science from the creators of one of the most popular computer science courses ever, CS50. You’ll learn the theoretical frameworks that enable these new technologies while gaining practical experience in how to apply these powerful techniques in your work.

Instructors

David J. Malan

You may also like

Using Python for Research

Take your introductory knowledge of Python programming to the next level and learn how to use Python 3 for your research.

CS50: Introduction to Computer Science

An introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming.

CS50's Understanding Technology

This is CS50’s introduction to technology for students who don’t (yet!) consider themselves computer persons.

More From Forbes

How a classroom experiment sparked an app that’s catching on quickly with neurodivergent learners.

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Hinrik Jósafat Atlason wasn’t expecting to start a new company when he began teaching computer science and business courses at Reykjavik University. But when he saw that many students were looking for better ways to learn the course material—and to find more opportunities to study on the go—he decided to do something about it.

The management consultant, who specializes in business analytics, began tinkering with Amazon Alexa to create a solution, and, with his team, developed an AI-powered audio assistant to make classroom material more accessible to students in 2019. That product, Atlas Primer , lets users upload documents and turn them into audio form, similar to an interactive podcast. The tool also provides short summaries of the learning material, a brainstorming feature designed to foster creative thinking and problem-solving, and audio quizzes. Users can also use the app to transcribe notes on the go.

"When we saw the reaction of students, we saw there was something profound here," he says. "They could now learn while they were exercising, commuting, or cooking at home."

Hinrik Atlason, founder of Atlas Primer

Atlas Primer began catching on, and Atlason turned it into a startup that made it onto Time Magazine's list of the world's top 250 ed-tech companies of 2024. Today, the app is seeing up to 500 new users a day, he says. It is available in a free version, a subscription-based offering providing additional downloads for $20 per month, and an enterprise version with usage-based pricing.

Along the way, Atlason based in New York City and Iceland, has raised $700,000 in grant funding from the Icelandic Technology Development Fund and $300,000 in venture funding from the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator in New York City and Iceland Venture Studio. The company has also attracted sponsorships from Microsoft and AWS.

As he developed the app, Atlason began sharing it with other professors at the school and two other universities, who were able to test it further. Initially, his idea was that the educators would upload the course material but, finding they were too busy to do that, Atlason and his small team transformed it into an interface for students.

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For students who have dyslexia, ADHD and autism, in particular, the app proved to be a game-changer, he found. "People with dyslexia are exposed to an often- insurmountable wall of reading material," Atlason says. "They can upload all of their learning materials, no matter what the teacher throws at them. These can be documents, websites, slides and even just pictures that students take from physical articles or books. They put all of this into Atlas Primer, and it turns it into an interactive audio learning environment that they can take with them wherever they go."

The lack of systemic change in the education system to support neurodivergent learners has an impact not only on these students but also on their families and the economy, Atlason points out. One study by Boston Consulting Group found that dyslexia and its consequences cost the state of California alone about $12 billion in 2020. Families spend approximately $15,000 extra per year on average on added support for children with dyslexia, that study found.

Using the app provided help that was otherwise hard to come by. "They were finding themselves in a learning environment that supported the way that they learn best, which is often through conversation and different modalities," Atlason says.

Atlas Primer recently formed a partnership with American Student Assistance (ASA), a nonprofit focused on helping students get to know themselves better and make informed career decisions earlier in life. The organization now offers Atlas Primer, through its EvolveMe platform, which helps students learn critical life skills to prepare them for life after high school.

"At ASA, we believe that technology, particularly mobile phones, can be used as a great equalizer in terms of reaching kids from all backgrounds with tools they need to plan their futures, said Clay Colarusso, CMO and SVP of Digital Strategy at ASA, in a statement.

Atlason's next step: Exploring applications for small business and corporate learning. One feature allows users to transform written material instantly into a course. "Having a more formal way of learning doesn't just help in school, it helps in life," he says.

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Computer Science & Engineering

CSE 190 - TOPICS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (2024-2025)

Updated: May 23rd, 2024

CSE 190 - Topics in Computer Science and Engineering

CSE 190 is a topics of special interest in Computer Science and Engineering course. Topics may vary from quarter to quarter.

Prerequisites also vary per course/per instructor. Department approval required.

CSE 190 is typically offered every quarter as staffing allows.

CSE 190 may be repeated for credit a maximum of 3 times (maximum of 12 units; assuming courses taken for a different topic)

A maximum of one  CSE 190 may enrolled/waitlisted per quarter

Note: For the Fall 2023 Computer Science (CS26) curriculum, all CSE 190 courses will be labeled with a corresponding "Tag(s)" (Systems, Theory/Abstraction, and/or Applications of Computing). CSE 190 offerings before Fall 2023 are untagged but may be used as an Open CSE Elective for Computer Science majors who have changed to the FA23 CS26 curriculum.

____________________________________________________________________________

CSE 190 A00:  Human-Centered AI with Kristen Vaccaro

Prerequisite:  No course prerequisites. 

CS Curriculum Tag(s): Applications of Computing

To enroll:  Submit course clearance request via  Enrollment Authorization System (EASy)

Description:  This course provides an introduction to harnessing the power of AI so that it benefits people and communities. Topics will include: agency and initiative, fairness and bias, transparency and explainability, confidence and errors, and privacy, ethics, and trust. Students will build a number of interactive technologies powered by AI, gain practical experience with what makes them more or less usable, and learn to evaluate their impact on individuals and communities. Students will learn to think critically (but also optimistically) about what AI systems can do and how they should be integrated into society.

___________________

CSE 190 B00:  Programmers are People Too with Michael Coblenz

Prerequisite:  CSE 110 or CSE 130.  Class is unofficially co-scheduled with CSE 291 Section B00. Students will not receive credit for both classes. 

Description:  Programmers of all kinds express their ideas using programming languages. Unfortunately, languages can be hard to use correctly, resulting in lengthy development times and buggy software. How can these languages be designed to make programmers as effective as possible?

In this course, we will learn research methods for analyzing and improving the usability of programming languages. Students will apply these techniques to languages of current and historical interest, and in the process, expand their knowledge of different ways to design languages. This course is intended as preparation for conducting independent research on the usability of programming languages. The first part of the course will emphasize research methods from human-computer interaction research, with examples drawn from programming languages and development environments. The second part of the course will focus on reading research papers that describe key results from the field. The course will include homework assignments as well as a group research project.