Final Projects

Drop the Mic and Stuff Your Resume

Your final project should be a full showcase of the talents you've cultivated during your time here, your creativity, you ability to problem solve, work in a team, and meet a harsh deadline.

Core Requirements

• Use any, all, most, or none of what you learned ...
  • Make sure it works great
  • Make sure it looks amazing
  • Make sure it's covered in tests

Tools At Your Disposal

• Express Web Server with EJS
• Express Custom API Server
• Authentication, Authorization, RBAC
• Remote APIs
• SQL
• MongoDB
• Socket.io
• React
• SASS
• React Native (Mobile)
• ... or teach yourself something totally new this week!

Workflow

• To manage Tasks ...

  • Agile / Kanban Workflow
  • Project Management System
    • Trello
    • Github Projects
    • Jira
    • Azure Boards

• To Manage and Deploy Code

  • SCM: Use the strict Git Workflow
  • Deployment:
    • Local dev/feature branches
      • One Branch Per Feature
    • Staging (Pre-Production) Branch
    • Master (Production) Branch
  • Developers work locally in feature branches
  • Check-in and merge PRs against stage
  • Deploy stage to a pre-production server (AWS, Azure, etc)
  • Once verified, PR stage against master and deploy to production server
  • Protect master from direct check-ins
  • Only Leads (TAs) can merge from Stage to Master
  • Testing: Hook in GitHub Actions for live code testing
  • Automation: Automate your deployment from Stage and Master to your service of choice.

Development Schedule

Class 45 (Project Planning)

• Create your GitHub organization
  • Back-End Repo
  • Front-End Repo
  • Other Repo's for supporting services
• Deploy a simple "Hello World" server through your full pipeline
  • Stage and Production of all servers
  • Tests hooked up and passing
• Get your project board setup with your initial stories
  • At this stage, its's probably just stories to write more stories...
• Get your Wiki setup for documentation

Class 46 (Project Start)

• Wireframes Complete
• User workflows finalized
• Initial design planned
• Code

Class 47 (Core MVP)

• First MVP should be completed by EOD
• Your core functionality should be working end to end.
  • Databases Hooked up and saving
  • User workflow works (navigation, actions)

Class 48 (Final MVP)

• Adding Non-Breaking Features
• Layering on the Styles
• Final "MVP" should be complete
  • Whatever you have by EOD should be presentation ready
  • Anything you add from this point on is purely additive.

Class 49

• Final Polish
• Presentation Practice

Class 50 (Graduation Day)

• Eat.
• Drink.
• Present.
• Graduate.
• Win.

Presentations

• Prepare a Powerpoint Style "deck" to present your project
• Slide 1: Team Name and Logo
• Slide 2: Summary of the project
• One slide for each team member.
  • Picture, 2-3 bullet points about you
  • Introduce yourself, touch on your role in the team, and present your personal pitch.
• Slide: Describe your problem domain in more bullet points
• Slide: Sell your solution
• Move to a stellar demo of the working application
• Show Your Tests
• Slide: Detail your workflow and process
• Slide: Highlight your wins
• Slide: Highlight areas for growth
• Questions and Answers

Why a deck? It's a helpful tool to keep you on time and on focus. Also, you will spend a lot of time in dev jobs speaking in front of a deck, so this is good practice for that. Know what's on screen behind you and prepare to speak in what appears to be an 'ad-hoc' fashion in front of it.

Sample Presentation Deck

Tips and Tricks

• Solve a real business or community problem
• Deliver something desirable (make it rock!)
• Don't over-complicate. Sometimes, the simplest solution can be the most scalable and stable. Favor stability and tightness over wizardry