Take the 2-minute tour ×  I already found a similar question
here on SO, but almost all of the answers were more
philosophical, rather than practical.  I'd like some PRACTICAL
ideas about how to make my programming course more interesting.
It doesn't matter how much effort it takes.  I thought about
asking my students to pick a topic in the beginning of the
course and to work on it as some kind of a real, small, startup
project that they could financially exploit once it's finished.
But I'm afraid that most of them will not take the project to
its completion, and that it could become very boring.  Also I
thought about involving them in Torcs, but I'm afraid most of
them wouldn't be up to the task. Btw, Torcs is Car Racing
Simulation, but there's an API for developers so they can
develop their own AI for the driver, and then race their car
against other programmers' AIs.  I'm not asking here for problem
examples, as I asked a separate question about that. I need
ideas about making my lectures more interesting