r/Coding_for_Teens • • Jul 26 '21

Discussion Programming ideas / challenges for any level or experience. For when you're bored or trying to escape tutorial hell :)

120 Upvotes

Hey, I often find people stuck on what to do after they learn a programming language, or stuck in "tutorial hell" where you know the language, but cannot make something yourself. Well, I've got a list of things you can make in mostly any language, for all skill levels :)

If you find these ideas a bit hard or uninteresting, take a look at the bottom of the post where there are some easier ones linked :)

If anyone decides to do any of these, share it in the comments with the source code so others can learn! :)

If anyone has any more ideas, leave them in the comments and I can add them to the list! Have fun :s

Easy

  1. Markov chain sentence generator
  2. To-do list application (Web or cli)
  3. Chatbot
  4. Image to ASCII Art
  5. Imageboard (Imagine vichan)
  6. Create an HSV Color Representation
  7. Old school demo effects (Plasma, Tunnel, Scrollers, Zoomers, etc)
  8. Fizzbuzz
  9. RPN Calculator
  10. Count occurences of characters in a given string
  11. Towers of Hanoi
  12. Calculator the first n digits of pi
  13. Given an array of stock values over time, find the period of time where the stocks could have made the most money
  14. Highest prime factor calculator
  15. Password generator
  16. Caesar cipher solver
  17. ROT 13
  18. Text encryption/decryption (http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/)
  19. Text to hex/binary converter
  20. Sierpinski triangle
  21. Basic neural network - Simulate individual neurons and their connections
  22. Complimentary colour generator
  23. Eulerian path
  24. Draw spinning 3D cube
  25. Cellular textures
  26. Snake
  27. Rock paper scissors
  28. Design a game engine in Unity
  29. Yahtzee
  30. Oil Panic
  31. Connect four
  32. Simon
  33. Ulam spiral
  34. PDF tagger
  35. ASCII digital clock
  36. Calculate dot and cross product of two vectors

Medium

  1. Download manager
  2. Elastic producer/consumer task queue
  3. IRC client
  4. English sentence parser that points to the context of a sentence
  5. MIDI player & editor
  6. Stock market simulator using yahoo spreadsheet data
  7. Graphing calculator
  8. TCP/UDP chat server & client
  9. Shazam
  10. Curses text editor
  11. Paint clone
  12. Image converter
  13. ID3 Reader
  14. C++ IDE plugin for sublime/atom/vscode
  15. Simple version control - supporting checkout, commit, unlocking, per-file configuration of number of revisions kept
  16. Password manager
  17. IP/URL Obscurification
  18. Radix base converter
  19. Encrypted file share
  20. Window manager
  21. Pixel editor
  22. Trivial file transfer protocol
  23. Markdown editor
  24. Music visualizer
  25. Unicode converter
  26. Least square fitting algorithm
  27. Image steganography
  28. Vignere cipher encryption/decryption
  29. Game of life
  30. Dijkstra's Algorthim
  31. Program that displays MBR Contents
  32. Random name generator
  33. Calculate the first 1,000 digits of pi iteratively
  34. Mandlebrot set
  35. AI for roguelikes
  36. Sudoku/n-puzzle solver using A* algorithm
  37. Connect 4 AI
  38. Real neural network - Implement a basic feed-forward neural network using matrices for entire layers along with matrix operations for computations
  39. Virtual machine with a script that writes "Hello, world"
  40. Terminal shell (Executable binaries, pipe system, redirection, history
  41. HTML & Javascript debugger
  42. Interpreted LISP-like programming language
  43. Universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter game
  44. Static website generator (Scriptable template, content)
  45. Chip 8 emulator
  46. Double pendulum simulation
  47. Constructive solid geometry
  48. Generate a 5-colour scheme from the most dominant tones in an image
  49. N-body simulator - with particles having a certain mass and radius depdning on the mass that merge if they collide
  50. Knight's tour
  51. Tetris
  52. Pipe dreams
  53. Pac man
  54. Shuffling a deck of cards (with visualisation)
  55. Simulate a game of tag using a multi-agent system
  56. Scorched earch clone
  57. Minesweeper
  58. An audio/visual 64KB demonstration
  59. Sudoku
  60. Chess
  61. Mastermind
  62. Missle command game
  63. Tron
  64. Breakout
  65. Bellman-Ford simulation with at least five vertices
  66. Matrix arithmetic
  67. File compression Utility (GUI)
  68. Bismuth fractal
  69. Seam carving
  70. Bayesian Filter
  71. Rubik's cube solver

Difficult

  1. Parametric/Graphic equalizer for .wav files
  2. Verlet integration
  3. Sound Synthesis
  4. Torrent client (CLI or GUI)
  5. Text editor
  6. OpenAI Gym project
  7. Convolutional neural network - Implement a convolutional NN for a handwritten digit recognition test on MNIST dataset
  8. Mount filesystems from other OSes using FUSE model
  9. Pong game as a UEFI file in colour
  10. Esoteric Language
  11. C Compiler
  12. Turing machine simulator
  13. Read, evaluate, print loop using a compiled language
  14. Ray tracer
  15. Real-time fast fourier transform spectrum visualiser
  16. TI-86 emulator
  17. Monster raising/breeding simulator
  18. Dragon quest / basic RPG engine
  19. First person engine in OpenGL
  20. Wolfensetin clone
  21. Danmaku engine
  22. Roguelike engine/dungeon generator
  23. Go
  24. LISP Interpreter
  25. Nonogram generator and solver
  26. WMS viewer that isn't web based

Very difficult

  1. Relational database system (SQL support, relationships, efficient)
  2. Bootloader
  3. General Lambert's problem solver
  4. Convolutional Neural Network - Implement your own convolutional neural network for handwritten digit recognition, test on MNIST dataset

An extended list of project ideas:


r/Coding_for_Teens • • Jul 24 '21

Discussion Free courses / Events / Resources Megathread

32 Upvotes

Hey there, I'm a new moderator on this subreddit 👋

I noticed there are a lot of posts about free event and programming courses, unfortunately they clog up the subreddit feed for users that want to have a conversation, get help or show off something cool they made, and a lot of these posts end up getting caught in Reddit's spam filter so I've made this megathread.

​

Feel free to post in this megathread:

  • Free udemy courses (referral link allowed, just don't spam please!)
  • Events such as hackathons
  • Youtube tutorials
  • Other coding resources

​

Please do not post in this subreddit or megathread:

  • Coding bootcamps / masterclasses
  • Discord servers
  • Tutoring services

​

Also a reminder to abide by Rule 2 in this subreddit. Please do not post content that isn't relevant to this subreddit, random articles, YouTube tutorials and courses. Please keep those within this thread, thanks :)


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 9h ago

my first ever lines of code

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3 Upvotes

r/Coding_for_Teens • • 6h ago

Parents of school students, would you consider introducing your child to coding outside school?

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1 Upvotes

r/Coding_for_Teens • • 7h ago

Hi guys help me?

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1 Upvotes

r/Coding_for_Teens • • 12h ago

CS student eager to learn and develop, looking for any projects I can contribute to

2 Upvotes

Intro

I am a 2nd year bsc computer science student

Programming Languages: C,C++,core Java and Python.

Experienced programming languages tutor with 8 months of experience.

Good at communication, team management and a fast learner

Love exploring and contributing to new things

I am open to any opportunities, and contributing for free..


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 8h ago

ridit's tech world...

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1 Upvotes

Here's a young boy of Bharat, currently in class X, contributing to the learning community.

Early training is important for becoming an effective contributor.

I am sure you will like the courage of this teenager to explore difficult software.

Miles to go.


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 16h ago

Getting your crush's Insta is overhyped. What's your GitHub?

3 Upvotes

Honestly, exchanging GitHub profiles sounds more interesting to me than exchanging Instagram handles.

Let's connect with people who love building projects, solving LeetCode problems, contributing to open source, and experimenting with new ideas.

I'm currently maintaining an open-source project and looking for ambitious developers who'd like to build something cool together. You don't have to be an expert; beginners who are willing to learn and contribute are welcome too.

Let's make some genuine connections, share what we're working on, learn from each other, and maybe find our next project collaborators here.

Drop your GitHub, LeetCode, or LinkedIn in the comments. What are you currently building or learning?

And if you're interested in joining my project, leave a comment or DM me. I'll share the details.

Let's connect beyond the feed and build something together.


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 10h ago

Its my first time doing a hackathon. Any tips?

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1 Upvotes

r/Coding_for_Teens • • 11h ago

Who like To build Small Project with Teammates like me, But cannot find Anyone

1 Upvotes

Can some one Code a tools like reddit but for creating and bringing together teammate having the same passion/interest in building something

And is there any tool that already exist like that?

it will be best if it feels Social


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 16h ago

Aiutate me e il mio compagno per favore!

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1 Upvotes

r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

I'm overwhelm

7 Upvotes

Hi, I started learning C++ like 1 year ago and I tried using 1 and only 1 modern feature of C++ (smart pointer and something like that) and it's hard asf 😭. I love C++ don't get me wrong but it's one of the language that "Oh I know C++!" but there will be always something that you don't know and I don't know even where to start! It's big! Like really big. How do I learn modern C++ and in general how do I become good in C++. Honestly I don't even want to use smart pointers!

Can I be honest? C/C++ = memory management, yeah, but I don't think that "managing" the memory with malloc, new, delete, free, calloc, realloc… is really a memory management. And I wanted to learn C/C++ for memory management but for the 90% of the cases if you alloc some memory in the heap someone says "DELETE THAT LINE OF CODE!! You don't need the heap!".

I know I'm a noob but I'm a noob overwhelm, so… how do I learn modern C++? I swear Cppreference is for me illegible 😭. Yeah there is learncpp but it doesn't have everything, I want to learn not everything but most things, you know…

Thanks for reading this random yapping post created by someone that doesn't really know where to use the operator==, maybe I know but rn I don't know I need to test in my next project 😂


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 20h ago

Looking for a teammate for the Congressional App Challenge

1 Upvotes

Looking for a teammate for this year's Congressional App Challenge. dm if intrested


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

First-year BCA student: Looking for quick micro-gigs to earn money & fellow coders to connect with!

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3 Upvotes

​

I'm currently a first-year BCA student just starting out with C programming, so I haven't learned much yet. Despite being a beginner, I want to build a solid future in tech.

I’m looking for practical ways to earn a bit of money in just a couple of days using basic computer or tech skills, as I need some quick side income right now.

At the same time, I’d love to connect with other students or developers who are coding so we can share ideas, learn together, and brainstorm projects. If you know any fast micro-gig ideas or want to connect, please let me know!


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

Is Learning to code in Group Best ?

3 Upvotes

is learning to code in group best or learning lonely

i want to learn to code the best way


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

Chat check out dis website i made 127.0.0.1:5500/ jk lol link in body

6 Upvotes

website - repo

Its just stupid stuff i made but learnt quite a bit :3 javascript is weird as hell tho


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

Wanna be Friends?

1 Upvotes

I'm into cloud computing beginner learning AWS before that I did know Some Javascript and AI tools like lovable, bolt I'm 16yrs old. Always wanted to surround myself with people also doing smtg in tech and for general networking. So I can learn more from them but never got to connect with any of them if there's anyone here wanna be friends we can talk abt tech etc and share resources? Let's connect.


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

Rate my progress

3 Upvotes

What do you think about a 15 yo teen that wants to learn programming?

If I'm already making a mod on minecraft on java by watching tutorials and asking AI to help with something (sorry for that) is that a good progress? I'm just interested in making mods on Minecraft, and I was learning to program on command blocks by tutorials at the age of 10 because of my interest too, and rn I really can do almost anything in minecraft by commands.

I am learning python at school and I think I'm pretty average in it, or smth in-between a beginner and an average coder on python. As about java I think I am only beginner in it, because I know only the basics, and I code my mod only by tutorials. I also want to learn C/C++ because it is the language that's similar to Arduino's programming language, and I really want to program Arduino to make my own projects. At least for myself! 🙃


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

[HTML, CSS, Shell, Bat] I need open-source developers

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1 Upvotes

r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

Made a project I wish had existed when I started

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2 Upvotes

r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

trying to learn coding and feeling completely overwhelmed

4 Upvotes

I'm learning Python to switch careers into data analysis, but I'm struggling to make progress. I've tried Codecademy, YouTube, and free Udemy courses, but I keep hitting the same wall around week two, when the concepts stop clicking and I can't figure out how to move forward.

I learn better by actually doing things than by watching videos, but even the interactive courses seem to assume I already know some basics that I'm apparently missing. How did you guys learn to code?


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

Introducing r/KnowVio! Here's what we're all about 👉

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1 Upvotes

r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

"[C++] Absolute Beginner looking for a daily accountability partner''

0 Upvotes

Absolute Beginner (First Year College) looking for a learning buddy to start from scratch." In the body, write: "Hey, I'm a first-year college student (non-CS branch) with zero coding background. I'm planning to invest 45-60 mins a day learning C/C++ basics. Looking for someone in a similar time zone to stay accountable, share resources, and solve basic logic problems together. No advanced coders please, just looking for a fellow beginner!


r/Coding_for_Teens • • 1d ago

HTML: BUDDY! BuddyOS the Computer that loves to communicate

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1 Upvotes

r/Coding_for_Teens • • 2d ago

Cambridge Battlecode Spoiler

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1 Upvotes

Think you can code a bot that outsmarts the competition?

Cambridge Battlecode 2026 is a worldwide programming competition where you build your own AI-powered bot and compete against other teams in a strategy game!

  • £18,000 prize pool
  • Open to participants worldwide
  • Teams of 1–4 people
  • No previous competition experience required
  • Code in Python, C, C++, or Rust
  • October 12 – November 18, 2026

Compete in weekly tournaments, improve your bot, climb the leaderboard, and potentially qualify for the live finals at the Cambridge Union in England!

Whether you're just learning to code or already have experience, this is a great opportunity to challenge yourself, build your programming skills, and compete against people from around the world.

Learn more and register: https://battlecode.co.uk/

#CambridgeBattlecode #Programming #CodingCompetition #ComputerScience #Battlecode2026