While human history is often shaped by chance, it is also influenced considerably by human ingenuity. Human ingenuity provided for such developments as the renaissance, the industrial revolution, and the internet. In fields as diverse as dance and technology, innovation and ingenuity are the driving factors behind new business developments. The role of human ingenuity in history could focus on any one of the historical developments influenced primarily by new ideas and process. A research paper on the renaissance could examine the main innovations that contributed to the rise of the new artistic movements spawned in that period, for example. As another example, for history class, you could do a timeline of major innovations in human history, from antiquity to today.
Ingenuity is not easy to define. While it would be tempting to equate ingenuity with innovation, that approach has its limits. Innovation is usually thought of in terms of something being utterly new; ingenuity requires only that someone have a good idea, whether it is truly original. All innovations require ingenuity, but not all ingenuity qualifies as innovation. For example, a person who figures out a new way to quickly solve a 1,000 piece puzzle has demonstrated ingenuity but not innovation, because he has simply competed an established task more efficiently than others. A written project on the concept of ingenuity could evaluate these ideas with respect to the arts, sciences and technology. For example, you could write a 2,000 word essay on the uses of ingenuity in science and technology, referring to the writings of Paul Graham or Vint Cerf.
One field that produces many great examples of human ingenuity is technology. Since before antiquity, inventors have been creating new devices that change the way human beings create, build and arrange things. Some examples of famous inventors include Louis Braille, inventor of the first reading system for blind people, and Roy Plunkett, inventor of Teflon. A research project on famous inventors and ingenuity would identify an inventor who displayed a high level of ingenuity and explain their contributions to the world. A paper on Steve Wozniak, for example, could talk about how much desktop computers have shaped the world we live in. A paper on Thomas Edison could talk about the number of prototypes Edison went through before finding the lightbulb model that worked.
Psychology has paid a lot of attention to the limits of intelligence as a predictor of success, and much of the research on other contributions has been focused on creativity and ingenuity. A research project on the psychology of ingenuity could examine the subject by citing second-hand sources, or by running new experiments and reporting the results. A research project on the psychology of ingenuity could take a group of volunteer subjects and give each one an IQ test, then ask them all to come up with a way of solving a Rubik's Cube. After timing each participant's Rubik's Cube efforts, you could then compare the IQ results against the Rubik's results, to see whether there was anyone who could do the cube quickly without scoring overly well on the IQ test. If any people did, you could interview them about their approach to problem solving and present this to them.