We made it. Now it’s time to put all that great work learning fundamentals into action!
Goal
The goal of the final project is to test your knowledge and ability in the topics that we’ve covered over the past 4 weeks. Those topics: Ruby, Rails, HTML, CSS, and JS are a solid core foundation on which you can build a new career in software development.
It’s going to be a lot of work(hopefully that’s nothing new at this point), but you can do it!
Summary
If you’ve taken a bootcamp course before, or really done any project.. you’re probably used to large final projects where you’re mostly off on your own. I want to do things a bit differently, because I want to make sure that you are setting the right level of expectations for yourself to meet what you’ll need in industry.
So instead of sending you off on your own, I want you to think of me as a project manager. You’ll be choosing the topic, but each week you will be sending your work to me for review and feedback on places I’d like to see you go next or ways to extend the ideas you have put together so far.
Choosing a topic
When you’re choosing a topic and goal for your final project, try to choose something that’s interesting to you. It doesn’t need to be a new app that no one has thought of before, or that you think will turn into a business, but it IS important that the subject matter is something close to your heart.
When you’re thinking of a project it’s often helpful to start with a topic and then add an extension which is the thing that justifies it being an interesting project.
For Example:
I’m going to build a site to catalog all of the vinyl records that I have and what I think of them
Extension: Other people can also create catalogs. We can show average ratings or organize trades.
I’m going to build a site for checking the local tides in my area
Extension: People can sign up to get notified when the tides are within a certain good range for fishing.
I’m going to build a site to document my travels.
Extension: Other people can create accounts to document theirs, as well as giving personal recommendations about things they have visited in each area.
Process
Create a new repository named:"#{your_github_username}-final" inside of our organization. This is where you’ll be doing work.
Choose the topic you’d like to tackle in your project. Topics should be
Interesting to you
Involving the material we’ve covered in the course including: JS, Rails, Ruby, HTML, & CSS
Note: You’ll need to be using more than what I’ve taught
Of sufficient scope
Out of your comfort zone
Email allaboardbootcamp@gmail.com by Saturday, March 27th(or earlier!) with the details of the project you’d like to do. I want to see:
A high-level summary of the work you’re planning
A breakdown of what the project will entail
Wait for me to respond before starting major parts of work. I’ll do my best to respond to all emails by Monday, March 29th.
The earlier you get your email to me, the better.
Get to work!
At the end of each week on Friday(3 weeks total), email allaboardbootcamp@gmail.com:
A description of your progress so far
A link to your repository
Any necessary instructions on how to run your project since I’ll be looking at them every week and running them myself
Just to be clear, feedback days:
Friday, April 2nd
Friday, April 9th
Friday, April 16th(my birthday, and the final project submission date!)
I’ll be sending feedback on your project as soon as I can
Feel free to work more in the meantime if it’s helpful for you
Address the feedback I’ve given you each week over the following week
Submit your final project and write-up by April 16th. Similar to the other check-ins:
Include a description of the work you’ve done on the whole project
Include a link to your repository
Consider copying this‘final’ description into a README file so people can see it when they go to your repository!
Timeline
So just to really nail down that timeline:
Date
Description
March 27th
Send project description to allaboardbootcamp@gmail.com
March 29th
I’ll send back feedback about your project, or a“go-ahead”
April 2nd
Send me your progress and I’ll give feedback
April 9th
Send me your progress and I’ll give feedback
April 16th
Send me your final write-up and a link to your project
ASAP
I’ll review and deliver final feedback(end of course)
Keeping your data
After the final project is over, you should be able to:
Push to your repository so the code and history are now in two places
Alternatively, if you prefer to remove your information from our organization entirely, I’ll happily transfer your two repositories over to your account where you can decide what to do with them.
Meta
The goal of the course is to help people.
My focus needs to be centered on the people that were taking this course.
While I realize that recommendations are a helpful part of a job search, I want to put all of my attention on helping the people that needed and participated in our course. If you’re already a seasoned developer and just looking for a recommendation, please consider another path. I’m happy to talk with you.
Projects are not group projects
Slack is still here for reference & help for 90 days from the start of the course
I won’t be able to take submissions after the final project window is over.
Goal
Summary
Choosing a topic
Process
Timeline
Keeping your data
Meta