Ask HN: Suggestions for fun side projects

You perhaps should give some hints on your field of expertise: webapps? phone apps? embedded programming? droids?

I mean, I'm looking to learn, so, even if you give me a project which I don't know anything about, I'll be happier...

Otherwise, I'm a competitive programmer(algorithms and stuff), but I did do web development a year or so back...

If you know algorithms well, create a visual simulator for algorithms. Take a user input and then display the results from each step of algorithm visually to people who want to learn algorithm. Most algorithm books show the steps with boxes etc, build them dynamically and displays the changes user input goes through during each step.

This would be awesome. One of my favourite articles of recent is http://bost.ocks.org/mike/algorithms/ which covers this kind of thing.

Make a prototype of Young Lady's Illustrated Primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age#Plot_summary

If you already have webcam floating around you can tackle with OpenCV to do your own gesture handler.