There are several reserved names in Windows. This is for backwards compatibility with mostly DOS programs. On your desktop, try and create a folder named “con”, and Windows should flat-out refuse. (Same thing for “prn”, “aux” and “nul”)

Some of the projects that pushed my own learning were very small things to help my school or work. When I was younger I had to do 100 FOIL equations and show my work. I did not want to do that all by hand and wrote a program to do it. If you got something super repetitive but not super hard, that would be a perfect project.