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Project Cycles

Join a small team, pick a problem, and have something that runs by the end. It finishes on stage at Demo Day, which anyone can come to.

Sep 30 – Oct 14 Apply as a student
Sep 24 – Oct 9 Apply as a team lead
A large group of students posing together and holding up three fingers, in front of a screen reading "Project Cycles Batch 03 Demo Day."
Four Vocal Sense team members by a whiteboard, one seated and wearing throat sensors, next to a monitor showing an EMG and Piezo vocal quality dashboard.
Demo Day · Dec 3
Dates
Oct 20 – Dec 3 6 weeks, meeting weekly
Time
5–6 hours a week
Team
2–4 people matched at the start
Open to
All UW undergraduates any major, any year
Applications
Students: Sep 30 – Oct 14 Team leads: Sep 24 – Oct 9
01

How a cohort runs

The cohort meets weekly, with Demo Day on Dec 3.

  1. 01

    Introduction and idea formation

    Oct 20

  2. 02

    How to Claude Code

    Oct 27

  3. 03

    Model Context Protocol (MCP)

    Nov 3

  4. 04

    Multi-agent workflows

    Nov 10

  5. 05

    Deployment

    Nov 17

  6. 06

    Project completion and rehearsal

    Nov 24

  7. 07
    Milestone:

    Demo Day

    Dec 3 · 5:30–8:30 pm, CSE2 G20 · open to the public

02

What past cohorts built

34 projects from 3 Project Cycles cohorts, shown by batch.

Five students standing behind a table with two open laptops, one displaying the HuskyConnect app's title screen with a University of Washington W logo.
Three students smiling indoors next to a monitor displaying their ASL Translator app, showing a live camera view of a person signing.

Batch 03

Spring 2026 · 8 projects

  • ASL Interpreter

    Software app that translates ASL into real world output

    Hayden Kwan, Jamie Yip, Owen Susanto, Noah Lau

  • Crosswatch

    Interactive risk map for Capitol Hill intersections

    Abir Bakshi, Dulguun Uuganbaatar, Javier Fernandez-Budiman, Lavender Chang

  • DeepReflect

    Open-source memory system that learns from user interaction patterns

    Marco Guo, Emma Zhang, Shea Li, and Anna Huang

  • Naviguide

    Navigation app for new UW students

    Shivani Kulandaivel, Celine Hsu, Kanako Miyazaki, and Tanvi Patil

  • Pothole Detector

    Crowdsourced pothole detection app for road repair teams

    Anjali Abhilash, Shivram Venkatachalam, Colin Tounalom, Nobita Shu

  • Provision

    AI-powered management system for food pantries

    Abel Anand and Tom Jacob

  • Vitro

    Symptom pattern tracker for patients managing chronic conditions

    Trinity Kwon and Eesha Harrish

  • Vocal Sense

    Hybrid AI vocal coach that evaluates singing technique

    Stephen Yang, Jae Eun Park, Rishita Biswas

Show 2 more

Batch 02

Fall 2025 · 12 projects

Show 6 more

Batch 01

Spring 2025 · 14 projects

Show 8 more
03

You don’t need

  • To be able to code

    Plenty of the work is design, research, writing and talking to users.

  • An idea of your own

    Most people join an idea somebody else brought.

  • A team

    Teams are matched at the start. Arriving alone is normal.

  • To be in CS

    Any major, any year. That's the entire point of the club.

04

Questions

I've never written a line of code. Can I still do this?

Yes, and people in that position finish every cohort. Teams need someone who can talk to users, write clearly, design an interface and keep the thing organized at least as much as they need another programmer.

Do I need my own idea?

No. Ideas get pitched at the start and you join one. Bringing an idea is welcome, not required.

How much time is this really?

It's 5–6 hours a week — the number at the top of this page, not a guess. That's real time, so weigh it against everything else on your plate before you apply.

What if my team stops showing up?

Tell your mentor as soon as it starts happening, not the week before Demo Day. Teams get reshuffled; it's happened before and it's not a failure.

Can I do this alongside a hard quarter?

People do. It's also fine to wait a year — the cohort runs every autumn, and a half-present teammate is harder than an absent one.

Applications close Oct 14

Team leads apply by Oct 9. The cohort starts Oct 20.

Apply as a student Apply as a team lead

Would rather write than build?

The AI+X Research Program runs alongside it and ends in a paper submitted to an IEEE venue instead of a demo.

AI+X Research Program