Wednesday, December 21, 2016

CODECLAN WEEK 13 - GROUP PROJECT WEEK

So this is group project week. Just over 10 weeks ago we sat in on Cohort 6 making their presentations for their group projects. At that time we were 3 weeks in and the thought was how on earth will we be ready to create projects like that. All were brilliant and well-executed.

Now It's our turn…

Last Wednesday we were split into our teams using the CodeClan randomizer. I was the first team member up and was then quickly joined by another 3 teammates. In all, there are 6 teams of 3’s and 4’s. Keeping in mind what we had learned and sticking to Cohort 7 rules (<-see right) we had a week to ourselves to execute our project.

We were set a number of project challenges that we could pick from, all with an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) that we must meet, and given free rein to add as many extras as we wanted.

We formed a huddle in the canteen area and went through each project. We quickly discounted a couple and homed in on 3 projects that we would then discuss in detail.

First up we discussed ‘Astronaut Dashboard’. We sketched out on A3 what we could make with this and searched for APIs that we could pull data from.

The second was an Educational App where we could produce a website app with a theme that again could pull from APIs and present the data in a teaching way.

The third and the one that enthused the team the most was a ‘Trip Planner app, where a user could plan a trip using visuals from Google Maps API. I had attended a presentation with VisTech in the Code Base building (next to CodeClan) a few weeks ago there was a project discussed was to develop an app that would help improve tourism along the A9 after the route from Perth to Inverness becomes a dual carriageway. The Trip Planner seemed similar and has a real-world need for it.


On deciding on a Trip Planner, we sketched out in more detail what specifics we would like to include in our app.

We had approximately 7 days to work on the project (including Saturday and Sunday) and be ready with a presentation and demo on the following Wednesday.

Thursday - we set up a Trello organization and added a number of Trello boards and each team member subscribed to them. Trello is a brilliant organizational tool and well worth a look, and extra bonus it is free.

Boards setup was: MoSCoW, which keeps track of our MVP, Timeline to plan and monitor when tasks are actioned, Ideas board, and a Bug Tracking board.

To get the bones of the App in place we programmed together through Thursday.

Friday after morning standup (yes we still did standup as a cohort each day) we did a small standup as a team. We did a use case example of how someone may use the Trip Planner App, and then discussed and added tasks for Friday and over the weekend into the Trello board.

I took on the tasks to program the Objects for an Organiser, Trip, and Activity. This was something that could be done in isolation and could be done when I was at home over the weekend. Not to be cut off from the rest of the team, we had set up a Slack channel where we could instantly communicate with each other. Slack another brilliant tool that has taken over email in a smarter way to communicate.

Saturday/Sunday. So remotely I set about creating Javascript objects, by using TDD (Test Driven Development). With the help of Mocha and Gitting each step of the way I quickly had 26 tests passing and had the 3 objects ready to incorporate into the Trip Planner app.

Monday we regrouped as a team and reviewed what had been achieved over the weekend. The Front end had improved with some wicked HTML CSS and we could new up a trip and add activities.

Tuesday morning we achieved our MVP, so all the requirements that we had set out to implement had been finished. As a team, it was a real buzz to get something coming together and working. It was also tricky not to add too much additional functionality.


So, in summary, the Trip Planner App, is a full-stack software implementation, using JavaScript, HTML, Express Server, and a Mongo NoSQL database.

Wednesday morning there was some time to do some more polishing and create some slides for the presentation at 14:00. Here is our chance to show off what we have created and also have a first look at the Apps created by the other teams. It was quite a big event on the course as each member of the team is required to present some aspect of the project, and we do so in the open space in the CodeClan office.

We were the third app and all went well. After some ooh’s and ahh’s long applause and some questions, we were done. Sit back and relax and watch the remaining presentations.

Massive thanks to my fellow Team Mates (you know who you are) and Cohorts. We worked well together and I really enjoyed the experience. It was great seeing the other teams bonding into their small groups too and sharing their experience. For us, I'm not sure if we will expand our Trip Planner App into a real website? who knows www.scottrip.scot domain is available.