In this assignment students create a game called 'Cowboy, Ninja, Bear' in Python. By creating a game in segments, students are tasked with building and testing incremental features of the game until all possible permutations within the game (using the predefined win-state outcomes) have been successfully met. The activity requires students to use a design document to outline and support their development process.

In this assignment students work either individually or in pairs to manage and analyze stock prices via a text menu. Students must write a function that asks the user what they want to do, providing nine options: input a new list of stock prices, print the current list, find various statistics, find the best day to buy/sell the stock in question, and quit the menu. Students may not use built-in functions, and must therefore write functions like sum, min, and max themselves using loops. In addition to reviewing i/o and loops, this assignment requires students to decompose their code thoughtfully. It is particularly useful for students who are new to loops and need additional practice with decomposition.

In this assignment students work either individually or in pairs to write a series of image-processing functions. Using list comprehension, students must write functions that invert the colors of an image, change the colors to greyscale, change the image to black and white, flip the image, and mirror the image. Students are also encouraged to be creative and come up with their own alterations. This assignment covers list comprehension on multidimensional lists. It is particularly useful for students who are new to multidimensional lists and need additional practice using list comprehension on them.

In this assignment students work either individually or in pairs to write functions that encode and decode a Caesar cipher, along with several other sorting and string problems. Students must write functions that encipher a message by rotating the letters and decipher a message by looking at letter frequencies in the enciphered message. Additionally, students must write functions that sort a binary list, sort a general list, find the number of characters shared between two strings, and find the least common subsequence of two strings. In addition to requiring students to work with recursion, strings, and list comprehension, this assignment requires students to design their own algorithms. It is particularly useful for students who are comfortable with the topics covered but need additional practice designing algorithms.

In this assignment students work to write a program that simulates a random walk. Using recursion, students must write a function that continuously randomly selects left or right and keeps track of how far the random walker has moved. They must then analyze their random walks to find how far the random walker travels on average. In addition to reviewing recursion and random number generation, this assignment requires students to create debug statements that print additional information. It is particularly useful for students who are new to recursion and need additional practice debugging.

In this assignment students work either individually or in pairs to write a program that plays the rock, paper, scissors with the user. Students must prompt the user for a choice of move, choose a move for the computer to make, and then display the results of the game. Students can choose whether their program plays honestly or cheats. This assignment requires students to work with basic console i/o and variables. It is particularly useful as a first assignment.

In this project students work either individually or in pairs to write an open-ended game loosely based on pool. Using VPython, students must write a pool-like game with a cue ball (or other object) that the player controls directly, other balls, walls, and some kind of hole in which the balls can fall (or other goal). These different objects must be able to interact simultaneously with some semblance of physics, either realistic or wacky. In addition to requiring students to work with graphics, this project allows students to work on creating their own programatic design. It is particularly useful for students who need additional practice designing and then implementing large programs.

In this project students work either individually or in pairs to write a program that generates random Picobots, robots that move around a world according to a set of rules, and creates subsequent generations by "mating" the "fittest" Picobots. Students must write at least two classes, one to represent a Picobot program and one to represent a Picobot world. They use these classes to generate a random generation of Picobots to begin and assess the fitness of each Picobot, mating them and outputting the results for each generation. In addition to reviewing classes, strings, and random number generation, this project requires students to design their own classes. It is particularly useful for students who need additional practice designing multiple, interacting classes.

In this project students work either individually or in pairs to write a text identification class that uses the Naive Bayes Classifier to determine what author is likely to have written a given text. Students are required to design a class that compiles features from a given text, such as word lengths, sentence lengths, and distribution of word-stems. They then use these features in the Naive Bayes algorithm to classify texts. In addition to reviewing string manipulation, this project requires students to design and document a class. It is particularly useful for students who need additional practice with strings and class design.

In this assignment students work either individually or in pairs to implement Markov text generation. Students must prompt the user for files to use as a model and then parse the files to create a k-th order Markov model, represented as a map of key words to the k words that can follow those words. Students then generate a random text using this map. In addition reviewing strings, dictionaries, and file i/o, this assignment requires students to design their own algorithm given basic specifications.