Andrew Malcolm (MIET, CEng) is a retired hardware and firmware engineer. He is an avid user of Linux and all its available open source and free engineering tools.
Designing a power supply can be an interesting yet dangerous engineering task. You can reduce some of the inherent risk by building a model and running simulations with SPICE in KiCad.
Design and construct a battery-powered GPS receiver and recorder in a compact package, with firmware and a Linux-based GUI application for visualizing the data recorded.