Personal project
Learning Competencies
By the end of this, you should have created a small personal project and practiced:
- Planning for a project
- Scoping your project realistically, i.e. giving yourself the right amount of work for the time you have
- Developing an "MVP" (Minimum Viable Product)
- Reflecting on your project and what you would do differently in the future
Summary
Plan and build a personal project that is exciting to you!
Time Box
| Activity | Time |
|---|---|
| Planning and research | 3.5 hours |
| Coding | 16 hours |
| Reflect | 30 minutes |
Introduction
It’s time to start working on a personal project that showcases your skills and creativity. A personal project is a website or an app that you design and build from scratch, based on something that is exciting to you. During bootcamp there is also some time for working on a personal project, but it’s up to you whether you want to continue your Foundations project there or not. If you would prefer to just work on something smaller this week and then do something completely different later, that’s okay too.
Why do a personal project?
A personal project is a great way to:
- Apply what you have learned so far in the sprints
- Explore new technologies and tools
- Solve real-world problems or challenges
- Express your personality and passion
- Build your portfolio and impress potential employers
How to choose a personal project?
There are no strict rules or limitations on what kind of personal project you can do. However, here are some tips to help you choose a suitable one:
- Pick something that interests you and motivates you
- Think about the purpose and audience of your project (If any, it might just be for you)
- Consider the scope and complexity of your project
- Be realistic about your time and resources
Now that you’ve had a reasonable amount of experience working with HTML, CSS and Javascript, you really can do anything you put your mind to. The most important part is definitely picking something that you feel excited about and is intrinsically motivating for you. Don’t start working on a personal project just because you had to pick something, make it fun for yourself!
How to do it?
The timebox for this personal project is one week, (unless you decide that you want to keep working on it later), so you might want to break it down like this:
Day 1: Brainstorming some possible ideas, picking one, then doing some research and planning around how you’re going to make it happen.
Day 2: Try to get your “MVP” working. An MVP in this context stands for Minimum Viable Product, it’s a term programmers use which basically means, “What is the smallest version of this idea that I can get up and running, to then expand upon further”. So for example, if you were building an app like the Javascript Cafe from Sprint 3, your MVP might be a barebones version of the cafe working, without any of the extra products, stretch goals, etc.
Day 3: Add any extra “nice to have” aspects to your projects that you think you can get done in a day. This is also a good time to work on the styling and get it looking exactly how you want it.
Day 4: Wrap up! Fix any little extra bugs and shave off the sharp edges, but don’t add any big new features. Once you’re done, write a mini reflection on what went well, what didn't go well, and what you would do differently next time. Post your finished project (and your reflection, if you want to) in your homegroup channel or the general foundations channel on discord. Woo!