cs145 Projects -- Fall24

Welcome to Dr. Gru's labs

In Dr. Gru's lair, you’ll be embarking on a journey through data-driven mischief and mayhem!

AI Use Policy for projects

Brainstormy, Not Stealy: AI can give you ideas, but YOU are the mastermind! Use it to cook up genius plans, but do the real work yourself. Credit any AI tools and where you got the help.
Code? You Do!: AI can help, but the final creation is yours, capisce? Make sure the code has your genius touch. No shortcuts, only smarts!
Prep for World Domination: Tests and job interviews are where you'll need to shine! Use AI to train you and give you training wheels NOW, not to skip the hard stuff. Learn it, own it, connect the concepts!

Project 1: BigQuery’s First Heist (10 points)

Everyone must complete Project 1, whether you're a minion or a mastermind!

Dr. Gru’s got his hands on a treasure trove of data, and it’s your job to extract the gems hidden within. You’ll dive deep into your favorite BigQuery datasets and uncover insights that even Gru’s shrink ray can’t make smaller!

Mission Briefing: Choose a dataset (500MB or more!), find the secrets hidden within, and pitch your plan to Gru with SQL queries that sparkle like gold.
Skills Unlocked: Master SQL subqueries, CTEs, and window functions.

You need to do this solo. Project1 link [Ed post] [internal to Stanford].
Due date: Oct 15, 2024, 10:00 AM

Credit: Images by GPT4o. Shiva had too much fun prompting for these random scenarios. Especially getting Gru's smirks just right. If you make better ones, lmk.

Option Project 2 (data science): BigQuery Part Deux – Dig Deep (30 points)

Gru demands you dig deeper into the data mines…

Gru isn’t satisfied with surface-level insights—he wants you to unleash the full potential of your SQL powers. In this mission, you’ll integrate new data, craft impressive visuals for Gru’s investors, and even predict the future with ML

Mission Briefing: Expand your dataset, create breathtaking visualizations, and build ML models to predict Gru’s next evil scheme.
Skills Unlocked: Advanced SQL, data visualization, machine learning in BigQuery, and query optimization.
You can do this in a team of two or solo. Project link [internal to Stanford].
Due date: Nov 21, 2024, 10:00 AM (and extra module for +1units on Dec 1st)

Option Project 2 (systems): The NanoQuery Columnar Mogrifier (30 points)

Gru demands a columnar database that bends the laws of physics…

Gru’s ultimate plan involves building a fassssst Parquet-based columnar database. You’ll need to generate mountains of data, optimize terrifyingly fast joins, and benchmark your system to world-domination standards.

Mission Briefing: Build a Parquet-based database system that crushes rows under its mighty compression powers. Then, unleash optimized three-table joins that defy space and time!
Skills Unlocked: Parquet-based storage, advanced query optimization, SQL parsing, and performance benchmarking.
You can do this in a team of two or solo. Draft preview -- Project link [internal to Stanford] [Will release by Oct12]
Due date: Dec 1, 2024, 10:00 AM

Resources

1. Getting started with BigQuery for Project 1