CS50 Final Projects

Student Projects

CS50 at Harvard culminates in a final project that students showcase at the CS50 fair. The creation of this final project maps to the AP CSP Create Task well.

Helping Students Pace Themselves

In CS50 at Harvard and Yale, students are required to submit a series of forms, including a pre-proposal, formal proposal, and status check on their final project. Eventually, students are required to write up documentation and record a 2 minute video showcasing their project. You are welcome to use any/all of the forms and wording.

The pre-proposal is an opportunity to urge students to begin thinking about what they would like to tackle for their project. The proposal should ask students to:

• Outline what they hope to achieve in their project.
• CS50 uses the terminology “good”, “better”, and “best” to ask students to clarify what they will accomplish, think they can accomplish, and hope to accomplish, respectively.
• Consider what tools/skills they will need to learn.
• Decide whether they are working in groups, and if so, with whom.

NOTE: Students should not feel limited to the languages/APIs used in class. CS50 has seminars on various topics which may be applicable to the Create Performance Task, but it should also be emphasized that students are expected to find and use resources outside of the class, and that you as a teacher will not know all the answers.

Possible Lessons Plans

• Based on pre-proposals and comments, prepare lessons and sample code for common tasks, like logging a user, connecting to a database, or reading new documentation.
• Examples of project management tools, whether software or a paper based system. See Margaret Tanzosh’s post on using Scrum Boards.

Teacher Created Resources

• Pre-proposal Form —  Angela Yake
• Final Project Instructions  —  Adapted from CS50 instructions by Angela Yake
• Final Project Lesson Plans  —  By Margaret Tanzosh