Start building your own amazing projects by choosing the right nanodegree program for you.
Start Learning

Udacity students consistently amaze and inspire us with their motivation and creativity. As 2014 comes to an end, we would like to share some of our favorite student project submissions from this past year.

Android Fundamentals

It’s exciting to see students enter a class with the skeleton of an idea and emerge with a mastery to flesh out that dream into a working reality. In Developing Android Apps, students get a hands-on learning experience from Google’s Android experts on how to create a cloud-connected app that retrieves info from a database. One beautifully built-out project that went above-and-beyond expectations by implementing the Facebook API and cross-user connectivity was the “MeetApp” (think Tinder meets MeetUp). This app is for you if you’ve arrived at an event wishing you knew someone there, only to be making awkward small talk with strangers the whole night. The “MeetApp” facilitates mingling by allowing users who are  attending the same Facebook event to match-up and connect only if the feeling is mutual. This takes the awkwardness out of random FB messaging, and ensures you have a friend even before you step foot into the party. Give it a try at your next Facebook gathering!

student_projects_meetapp

Programming Foundations with Python

If you can’t make it to Vegas this holiday, you can recreate the experience with “Slots”, a project from Programming Foundations with Python. It’s simple: you place your bet, give it a “spin” and cross your fingers that you’ll soon be rolling in the that virtual dough. For this Final Project, one of our students was able to create a program that is not only addictively engaging, but demonstrated his understanding of the foundational Python topics and explored new standard libraries, all with code that is well modularized and commented. Try to prove the saying wrong that the “House” always wins.

student_projects_playslots2

student_projects_playslots1

Front-End Web Development Nanodegree – Javascript Basics

In this course, students master the Javascript programming skills necessary to build a Frogger-style game for their final project. While we supply stock game characters and backdrops, one exceptional student put his own spin on the program. In JavaScript Arcade Clone (Udacity Style), the student transformed Udacity staff into the characters of his game and weaved together a fun backstory to showcase his course experience. See if you can help Miriam and Mike collect and reshelve all the lost course material while dodging the deadly Lady Bugs. Once all resources have been retrieved, you will get a gong ring similar to the one we hear at Udacity whenever a student graduates!

student_projects_frogger2

student_projects_frogger1

iOS Development Nanodegree – Intro to iOS App Dev with Swift

In the final Intro to iOS App Development project, students use XCode to build an iPhone app that allows users to record a conversation and alter its speed or pitch. As a result, you can annoy your friends with a high pitch Chipmunk sound or a classic Darth Vader one. One student took this project to a whole new level by incorporating “echo” in their recording. To create this effect, the student dove deeper into AVFoundations library than we had covered in the course to discover new applicable methods. He then mixed these with a bit of physics understanding of what an echo is (a reflected copy of a recorded sound played back at a smaller amplitude).

student_projects_swift

The result is a clever piece of code that takes the current recording, delays it by a set amount of time and then replays it back at a slighter lower volume– an audio tool that would make any auto-tuned artist jealous.

AI For Robotics [Georgia Tech Online Masters in Computer Science]

Artificial Intelligence for Robotics teaches students the basics of Artificial Intelligence and how to apply these concepts to building a self-driving car, and is taught by Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun.

student_projects_mindstorm

A team of students from Georgia Tech’s Online Masters CS program designed a robot that uses localization and color tracking to detect its position in a room and move towards a designated target, similar to a cat hunting down its prey. Check out their Lego Mindstorms EV3 Wall Tracer + Localization Robot in action here.

Introduction to Java

What better way to guarantee you’ll reign as the Connect Four Champion in your household than to code up a robot to win the game for you? For the Intro to Java Final Project, students are asked to created a Connect Four playing agent, putting into practice all the essential CS concepts they learned such as Object-Oriented Programming, Decision Making, and Iterating. One student’s code in particular stood out because it was elegantly crafted and concise, yet still created a very clever playing agent. The student realized having the agent check whether or not to play a piece in every available slot boils down to a recursive process—an algorithm where a function calls itself. This is a concept all beginning CS students learn, but it usually takes a bit of practice before easily recognizing situations it’s best suited for.

student_projects_connect4

Come into the class a newbie in Computer Science, leave able to program a gaming robot. Brilliant move indeed.

Congrats to all of our students!