TEACH OLDPROJECTS                                            A.Sloman Feb 1984

                          OLD STUDENT PROJECT TOPICS
                          ==========================

This is an incomplete list of AI project topics chosen by students in the
past.

1. Solving anagrams using a list of known words and a cross-word
puzzle clue.

2. Many game-playing programs: Nim, mastermind, bidding in bridge, cribbage,
parts of chess, noughts and crosses, etc.

3. Winograd-like blocks, world programs. Extensions of teach blocks and teach
riverchat, with or without a grammar-driven parser.

4. Finding a route. Program is given a database of geographical information
and selects a route from one place to another, subject to criteria e.g. best
scenery, shortest route, only main roads, lots of pubs on the way etc.

5. A program to play hangman - trying to guess a word, by guessing which
letters it contains. Intelligent selection of letters to try, using list of
known words plus feed back from guesses so far.

6. Disambiguating ambiguous sentences using context. A variety of different
databases can be set up representing different contexts. The analysis of
ambiguous sentences typed in could be guided by reference to the database.

7. Replications of Colby's Parry and other 'classic' programs decribed in the
literature. Student programs are necessarily much reduced in scope!

8. Variants of Evans analogy program (A is to B as C is to what?) using
either pictures or a database to represent A, B, C and the alternatives. The
program may either create its own answer or select the best one from a list of
options.

9. Various "expert system" programs. E.g. take a motor-bike repair manual and
turn the fault-diagnosis section into an expert system. A simple version of
this could be an extension of TEACH DISCRIM.

1O. Various programs to teach children something: arithmetic, spelling,
geometry, etc.

11. A program to solve jig-saw puzzles. The pieces have rectangular shapes
and coloured edges, or some other simple patterns which constrain how they
should fit together.

12. Implementing a subset of some other language in POP-11 - e.g. LISP,
LOGO, PROLOG, STRIPS.

13. A program to understand English commands to draw turtle pictures. E.g.
"Draw a big square above a triangle containing a small square".

14. A program to play Battleships.

15. Various translation programs - English to some other language or vice
versa, for some restricted subset of the language.

16. A program to analyse a piece of music - e.g. working out where the bar
lines should go, or finding the key signature.

17. A program to analyse the structure of a short myth or fairy tale -
fitting stories to known scripts or schemas.

18. Dealing with family trees and answering questions about kin
relationships. Proving theorems about kin relationships, e.g. The son
of the grandmother of X is either the father or the uncle of X.

19. Various kinds of trial and error learning in game playing. E.g. a
program which gets better at playing Nim, or noughts and crosses, by
analysing games where it loses.

20. A program which finds the best way to fill a gap in a sentence
e.g. "The old man liked drinking at the local X" given (a) previous
information (b) a list of words to replace X e.g. [house, cat, pub,
church].

21. A program which draws pictures then answers questions about the
picture e.g. how many lines are there? Why did you draw lines? How did
you draw squares? Is line 2 inside square 2, etc.

22. A program to generate stories. There are many variants on this,
and varying degrees of sophistication, depending on how good a grasp
the program itself has of the plot, the goals of the characters, etc.

23. A program to solve crosswords - choosing words from a known list,
subject to consistency with the crossword layout and the clues.

24. A program to simulate emotional/social interactions e.g. finding
excuses when caught out.

25. A program to teach something by presenting exercises, analysing
the student's answer, making criticisms and suggestions for
improvement.

26. A program to find bugs in single POP-11 programs and suggest
improvements.

27. Choose some task children can perform, observe how they do it, and
write a program to do something similar.

28. Simulate a "conversational" vending machine, e.g. a drinks vending
machine.


        **** This list will be extended from time to time ****


See also TEACH * POP11_PROJECT

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