Software wise you could also have a look at dask. Which is more lightweight than Hadoop and spark. But since you are asking for a project, why not do something

Software wise you could also have a look at dask. Which is more lightweight than Hadoop and spark. But since you are asking for a project, why not do something local. I.e. you could scrape some data for some time (cinemas, crime) and structure it nicely. After a few months you can start analysis. Bonus points if you make you data available.