Block 141: Capstone: Project Selection & Scoping
Choose a meaningful project and write a clear project plan.
Concepts
- Project archetypes: data explorer, ML predictor, NLP analyzer, automation tool
- Defining a specific, answerable question
- Identifying data sources: API, CSV, scraping, open datasets
- Selecting libraries: 3–5 complementary tools
Code Examples
See exercise below.
Exercise
Choose your project from 3 options: (a) Weather Data Explorer (API + pandas + plots), (b) House Price Predictor (CSV + pandas + scikit-learn + Flask API), (c) News Sentiment Monitor (API + NLP + visualization). Write a 1-page plan: problem, data source, processing steps, libraries, expected output. Review your plan against this checklist: Is it achievable in 2 weeks? Is the data accessible? Does it use 3+ libraries?
Homework
Read your plan aloud. Find 3 potential risks or blockers and write mitigation plans for each.