Final Project

Wahoo! Final projects. We will spend the next week and a half preparing for final project presentations. Everything you've learned up to now will be utilized for your final project.

Keys to success

Don't panic! You have a full week to work on it starting on Friday. Week 4 lectures will be decided on the fly based on everyone's needs and requests.
Pick project groups of two: More people does not mean it is easier, it means it is more complex. The most successful projects are with two people working in tandem. Groups of 3 are strongly discouraged based on past experience.
Don't spend more than an hour on a problem: It's easy to get tunnel vision. You will get stuck on problems! Utilize Erica, Ian, and Brian to help you get you through tough problems so you can focus on the bigger picture. Ask for help!!
Focus on social improvement: While you may not be able to solve a problem in a week, apps should try to help improve some of the local South African problems you've seen in the last few weeks.

Week 3 Schedule: "Ideation"

We will continue to learn Rails fundamentals week during week 3. You will also begin to choose teams and come up with ideas.

Tuesday morning: Start figuring out who you want to partner with.
Thursday morning: Teams are finalized!
Friday morning: Your team comes up with at least two simple project proposals (see below). Friday morning

Week 4 Schedule: "Creation"

From Friday to Friday, you will work on your final project all through week 4.

Short (~20 minute) lectures will be given based on your challenges.

Creating a proposal

Create a short proposal document (1 page maximum). Don't worry: you don't need to have everything fully fleshed out right now.

In your proposal, answer the following questions:

What is the problem you want to solve?
What is the solution you are proposing?
How does your system work?
What kinds of external tools do you think you will need? (ex: APIs, gems)
What do you think you still need to learn to make your app a success? (ex: JQuery, Search, etc.)

Keep in mind that your app must have:

at least 2 controllers
at least 1 devise User model
at least 2 app models
at least 1 has_many OR has_many :through OR has_and_belongs_to_many relationship
RESTful routes for app models
deployed on Heroku
Bootstrap
CSS/HTML(/JS) organized correctly

Try to keep it as close to these requirements as possible when you design your proposal so have time to finish. Remember, Twitter originally had 2 app models and 1 user model and they launched a billion dollar empire.

Proposal approval

We will be approving final project ideas on Friday morning. We will help you simplify your projects or modify it to be more feasible given the time we have left.

Aaron will do a UI/UX workshop on Friday afternoon to help you plan.