25 AI Project Ideas for College Students (With Source Code)
The best AI projects for college students aren't another chatbot. They're agents that do something real on the live web: find internships, compare prices, track research papers, or check whether a deal is actually a deal.
Here are 25 AI project ideas for college students, from weekend builds to final-year projects. Most come with open-source code on GitHub from the TinyFish Cookbook, so you can see exactly how they work, run them yourself and make them your own.
TL;DR
- Beginner (a weekend): price trackers, deal finders, scholarship and tutor finders.
- Intermediate (a few weeks): research assistants, restaurant safety checkers, travel planners.
- Final-year level: competitive intelligence, supply chain monitoring, government tender tracking.
- Source code: 40+ projects in the TinyFish Cookbook on GitHub, many with live demos.
- Build it for free: students get $35 in their TinyFish wallet at tinyfish.ai/students, and you can earn a gift card by submitting your build as a bounty.
What makes a good AI project for college students?
- It solves a real problem, ideally one you have yourself.
- It uses live data, not a fixed dataset, so it's actually useful and impressive in an interview.
- It's demo-able in 30 seconds. Type something in, watch it work, get an answer.
- You can explain how it works, from the prompt to the agent to the result.
Most projects below follow the same simple pattern: find the right pages, send AI agents to read them in parallel, and show the results. Once you've built one, you can build all of them.
Beginner AI projects (build in a weekend)
1. Scholarship Finder
Enter a scholarship type, university and region, and agents search real scholarship sites in parallel and stream results back.
Source code: scholarship-finder
2. Summer School Finder
Scans university websites in parallel to find summer school programmes that match what you're looking for.
Source code: summer-school-finder
3. Tutor Finder
Pick an exam and your location, and agents search tutoring platforms at the same time to compare options.
Source code: tutor-finder
4. Lego Restock Hunter
Finds sold-out LEGO sets across retailers and checks live stock and price on each one. Swap LEGO for sneakers, consoles or concert merch.
Source code: lego-hunter
5. Open-Box Deal Finder
Searches 8 retailers' open-box and refurbished sections at once, with an optional max price.
Source code: openbox-deals
6. Game Buying Guide
Checks 10 game stores at once, plus price history, to tell you whether to buy now or wait.
Source code: game-buying-guide
7. Anime Watch Hub
Finds which streaming platforms actually have your show right now.
Source code: anime-watch-hub · Live demo
8. Wing Command
Finds the best chicken wings near you by checking delivery apps and review sites at the same time. Swap wings for any food.
Source code: wing-command
Intermediate AI projects (a few weeks)
9. Research Sentry
A voice-first research assistant that searches 8 academic portals in parallel and assembles verified paper details. Great for a dissertation.
Source code: research-sentry · Live demo
10. Restaurant Safety Checker (SafeDine)
Compare 2–5 restaurants before you go, filtered by your allergies and dietary needs.
Source code: restaurant-comparison-tool · Live demo
11. Stay Scout
Tells you which neighbourhood to stay in before you book, using travel guides and maps.
Source code: stay-scout-hub
12. Happy Hour Finder
Finds happy hour deals across a city in seconds. Built for Saigon, easy to point at your own city.
Source code: saigon-happy-hour-sniper
13. Bike Rental Price Comparison
Compares motorbike rental prices across shops that don't list them anywhere else.
Source code: viet-bike-scout · Live demo
14. Rent Market Tracker
Pulls live rental listings and neighbourhood scores so you can find a fair price. A great starting point for a student housing finder.
Source code: district-rent-shark
15. Medicine Price Comparison
Compares medicine prices across pharmacy chains in real time.
Source code: pharmacy-panic
16. Figure Deal Bot (Discord)
A Discord bot that finds discounted collectible figures across sites. A fun way to learn bots and agents together.
Source code: waifu-deal-sniper
17. Football Highlight Finder
Ask for "all yellow cards from [match]" and it finds the footage and compiles clips.
Source code: worldcup-briefing
Final-year and advanced AI projects
18. Competitive Pricing Intelligence
Tracks many competitors' pricing pages at once and presents a clean comparison.
Source code: competitor-analysis · Live demo
19. Competitor Scout (CLI + web app)
Set your competitors once, then ask questions about their features and positioning in plain English.
Source code: competitor-scout-cli
20. Loan Decision Copilot
Compares loan rates, fees and eligibility across banks in real time.
Source code: loan-decision-copilot
21. Logistics Sentry
Monitors port congestion, carrier advisories and pricing for supply chain teams.
Source code: logistics-sentry · Live demo
22. SiliconSignal
Tracks semiconductor parts across distributors for supply chain risk.
Source code: silicon-signal
23. Government Tender Tracker
Scrapes multiple government tender portals in parallel and lists upcoming opportunities by sector.
Source code: tenders-finder
Projects students built in a single evening
These two were built by university students at TinyFish campus events, and both won.
24. Internship Signal
Finds and verifies real Summer 2027 internships across Greenhouse, Ashby, Workday and YC, then monitors a careers page daily. Built in ChatGPT. Read how it was built.
25. Fake Sale Detector
Checks a product's price history on the Wayback Machine to prove whether a "sale" is real. See it in 10 student use cases for TinyFish in Claude.
How to build your first AI project
- Pick one idea above and open its source code on GitHub.
- Get free credits: sign up at tinyfish.ai/students with your school email for $35 in your TinyFish wallet.
- Try it without code first in the TinyFish Playground. Our 15-minute guide walks you through it.
- Run the project locally, then change one thing: a different city, site or product.
- Ship it and share it: deploy it, post a demo on LinkedIn, and submit it as a bounty on TinyBounties for a gift card.
Turn your project into a portfolio piece
- Put the live demo link at the top of your README and your CV.
- Write one paragraph on what you learned, like the hardest bug or what surprised you.
- Submit it as a bounty: approved builds earn a gift card and get a Build Log on the TinyFish blog with your name on it.
- Want to earn more? See how to make money building AI products as a student.
Follow TinyFish for new project ideas and build spotlights: X (@Tiny_Fish) · LinkedIn (TinyFish) · Instagram (@tinyfish_ai)
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AI disclosure
Content on this website may be created or refined with the assistance of AI tools and is subject to human editorial review.
