Level-Set & Environment (Open Food Facts API)
Introduction to the course, logistics, and environment setup. Working with the Open Food Facts API to refresh pandas skills and understand REST API fundamentals.
📓 Syllabus
DS205 (2025/26 Winter Term)
Check this page every week for more information on studying for the course.
Last updated: 15 January 2026
🗓️ Week 01 19 Jan 2026
-
23 Jan 2026
🗣️ Lecture
💻 Lab
Hands-on Practice with Open Food Facts API
Building foundational skills in API consumption and data processing with pandas.
🗓️ Week 02 26 Jan 2026
-
30 Jan 2026
🗣️ Lecture
Introduction to Web Scraping with Scrapy
Understanding web document structure, XPath and CSS selectors. Introduction to the Scrapy framework for web scraping.
💻 Lab
Practising XPath and CSS Selectors with Scrapy (Waitrose)
Hands-on scraping practice with Waitrose product data.
🗓️ Week 03 02 Feb 2026
-
06 Feb 2026
🗣️ Lecture
Advanced Scrapy: Item Pipelines and Dynamic URL Discovery
Building scalable scrapers with Scrapy pipelines and handling pagination.
💻 Lab
Building a Complete Scrapy Spider for Waitrose
Implementing a full scraping pipeline with data cleaning and storage.
🗓️ Week 04 09 Feb 2026
-
13 Feb 2026
🗣️ Lecture
Building Collaborative APIs with FastAPI
Introduction to FastAPI, Pydantic v2, and building APIs for data sharing. Collaborative development patterns.
💻 Lab
FastAPI Development and Docker Introduction
Building APIs and using Docker to resolve environment conflicts.
📝 Practice
Problem Set 1: Scrapy spider + FastAPI (peer hand-off)
Collaborative project where students build scrapers and APIs that other students will consume.
🗓️ Week 05 16 Feb 2026
-
20 Feb 2026
🗣️ Lecture
Project 1 Support and Review
Support session for Problem Set 1 completion and peer hand-off process.
💻 Lab
Problem Set 1 Development Session
Dedicated lab time for working on Problem Set 1 with instructor support.
🗓️ Week 06 23 Feb 2026
-
27 Feb 2026
📖 Reading Week
No lecture or lab this week.
Use this time to catch up on coursework and prepare for the second half of the term.
✍️ Summative
Problem Set 1 Due: Thursday, 26 February 2026, 8pm UK time
Submission via GitHub. Includes peer hand-off component.
🗓️ Week 07 02 Mar 2026
-
06 Mar 2026
🗣️ Lecture
Feature Engineering & DuckDB
Introduction to analytical databases and feature engineering techniques. Working with DuckDB for efficient data processing.
💻 Lab
Hands-on DuckDB: Querying and Feature Engineering
Practical work with DuckDB for analytical queries and data transformation.
🗓️ Week 08 09 Mar 2026
-
13 Mar 2026
🗣️ Lecture
Introduction to Embeddings and Vector Databases
Understanding word embeddings, sentence transformers, and vector databases. Introduction to ChromaDB.
💻 Lab
Extracting Embeddings from TPI Food Producers Data
Working with TPI Centre Food Producers assessments and extracting embeddings using sentence-transformers.
✍️ Summative
Problem Set 2 Released
TPI Food Producers embedding extraction assignment.
🗓️ Week 09 16 Mar 2026
-
20 Mar 2026
🗣️ Lecture
Building Search APIs with Vector Databases
Creating search endpoints using ChromaDB and embeddings for semantic search.
💻 Lab
Implementing Search APIs with ChromaDB
Building FastAPI endpoints that use vector similarity search.
🗓️ Week 10 23 Mar 2026
-
27 Mar 2026
🗣️ Lecture
Problem Set 2 Support Session
Dedicated support for Problem Set 2 implementation.
💻 Lab
Problem Set 2 Development Session
Hands-on support for completing Problem Set 2.
✍️ Summative
Problem Set 2 Due: Thursday, 26 March 2026, 8pm UK time
TPI Food Producers embedding extraction and search API implementation.
🗓️ Week 11 30 Mar 2026
-
03 Apr 2026
🗣️ Lecture
Final Project Definition: RAG Systems
Introduction to RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) systems. Final project requirements and expectations.
💻 Lab
Final Project Planning and Q&A
Planning session for the final project. Building a RAG system for TPI research questions.
📦 Final Project
Final Project: RAG system for TPI research question
Due in Spring Term (May/June 2026, TBC). Group work worth 50% of final grade.