Python Projects for Beginners: 32 Ideas From a Guessing Game to a Deployed App, With Starter Code

Pick something you would actually use. Each idea below names the data it needs and an upgrade that makes it portfolio-worthy. Starter code for four of them is at the end, and every sample was run before it was published.

First scripts (a weekend each)

Automation and files

Web apps and APIs

Data and machine learning

Games and algorithms

Starter code: password generator

Uses secrets, which is meant for security, not random. It keeps generating until all four character types appear.

import secrets, string

def make_password(length=14):
    symbols = "!@#$%&*"
    alphabet = string.ascii_letters + string.digits + symbols
    while True:
        password = "".join(secrets.choice(alphabet) for _ in range(length))
        if (any(c.islower() for c in password) and any(c.isupper() for c in password)
                and any(c.isdigit() for c in password) and any(c in symbols for c in password)):
            return password

pw = make_password()
print(len(pw), any(c.isdigit() for c in pw))

Output: 14 True

Starter code: guessing game logic

Keep the rules in a small function so you can test them without typing guesses.

import random

def check_guess(secret, guess):
    if guess < secret:
        return "too low"
    if guess > secret:
        return "too high"
    return "correct"

def play(low=1, high=100):
    secret, tries = random.randint(low, high), 0
    while True:
        tries += 1
        result = check_guess(secret, int(input(f"Guess a number {low}-{high}: ")))
        print(result)
        if result == "correct":
            print(f"You won in {tries} tries")
            return

print(check_guess(42, 30), check_guess(42, 50), check_guess(42, 42))
# call play() to run the game

Output: too low too high correct

Starter code: to-do list core

import json
from pathlib import Path

def add_task(tasks, text):
    tasks.append({"text": text, "done": False})

def complete_task(tasks, index):
    tasks[index]["done"] = True

def save(tasks, path="todo.json"):
    Path(path).write_text(json.dumps(tasks, indent=2))

def load(path="todo.json"):
    p = Path(path)
    return json.loads(p.read_text()) if p.exists() else []

tasks = []
add_task(tasks, "Revise recursion")
add_task(tasks, "Push project to GitHub")
complete_task(tasks, 0)
for i, task in enumerate(tasks, 1):
    print(i, "[x]" if task["done"] else "[ ]", task["text"])

Output: 1 [x] Revise recursion and 2 [ ] Push project to GitHub. Add argparse for commands and the save and load functions for a real app.

Starter code: expense summary

from collections import defaultdict

expenses = [("food", 180), ("travel", 60), ("food", 220), ("books", 450), ("travel", 40)]
totals = defaultdict(int)
for category, amount in expenses:
    totals[category] += amount

for category, total in sorted(totals.items(), key=lambda item: -item[1]):
    print(f"{category:<8}{total:>6}")
print("total", sum(totals.values()))

Output: books 450, food 400, travel 100, total 950

Turn any idea into a portfolio piece

1. Pick one idea and write the one-line goal first.
2. Build the smallest version that works end to end.
3. Add tests for the rules that could silently break.
4. Deploy it so there is a live link or a one-command run.
5. Write the README: what it does, how to run it, one number, one limit.

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