Foundations Capstone Project
Overview
What is the capstone?
As your final project of Foundations, you’ll be building an app from start to finish!
When does it need to be complete?
This unit’s labs are designed to be shorter so that you’ll have work time for your capstone project. You’ll have until the final day of Foundations to complete this project.
What will we do with these projects?
You’ll be making a demo video and presenting them to your cohort and Devmountain staff. They can also go in your portfolio. We’ll cover more details about all of that as it gets closer.
Details
This is the start of your first solo project! Let’s talk about what you could build:
Ideas:
Choose a previous lab exercise from Foundations to build on.
Use a previous lab as inspiration and create a similar project.
Come up with your own idea!
Requirements Overview
We’ll get into the specifics, but the base requirements are that your project has:
Planning documentation
An interactive front end (inputs, buttons, etc.)
At least 3 main features
Custom styling
A connection to a server and makes requests from the front end (express and axios)
2-3 minute presentation
Building Your Project
There are more instructions in the lab exercise, but you should start out with some planning before you begin coding.
Build out the core features of your app and then if you have time, add in more.
You’ll want to be done part way through Unit 8 so that you will have time to record your demo video.
Examples
#1: Magic 8 Ball. Your 3 features might be:
Users can enter questions
Users get randomized answers to their questions
Users can save responses
#2: Trip List. Your 3 features might be:
User can add a location to a “Want to Visit” or a “Visited” list
User can delete items from their lists
User can view one or both lists
#3: Calculator. Your 3 features might be:
User can add, subtract, multiply, or divide numbers
User can continue calculation on a given answer (press 2 + 3 = and then can do * 10 to the 5 that’s returned)
User can save amounts (for budgeting or figuring out complex problems)
Grading
Process
Staff will grade both your code and your presentation according to a checklist.
All the criteria are included on one checklist and you will receive a single grade for the whole project.
Points
Each item is worth 5 points
There are 125 points possible, but the grade is out of 100, so you could score extra credit points
You will need to score at least 70 points to pass, meaning that you’ll need to check off 14 items minimum
Checklist
Overview
Remember: you do not have to include every single item! 14 is the minimum.
The required items are starred.
Planning
project includes a wireframe for each view
project includes a list of MVP features *
project includes a data model
MVP
app has at least 3 main features *
front end makes a request to the server and handles the response *
front end is interactive *
app has custom styling *
Front End
app has at least 5 semantic tags *
app includes 1 view *
app includes 1+ additional view(s)
styling includes flexbox
at least 1 view is responsive
styling includes animations
Server
app includes a GET endpoint and handler function *
app includes a POST endpoint and handler function *
app includes a PUT endpoint and handler function
app includes a DELETE endpoint and handler function
app utilizes Sequelize
project includes at least 1 controller file
Database
project includes a seed file or function
app uses 1 table
app uses 1+ additional tables
app uses a foreign key and join
Presentation
discusses project purpose and demonstrates MVP *
does not discuss broken/unimplemented features
recording is between 2-3 minutes
Summary
You have the rest of Foundations to work on this (minus time to record a demo video).
You need to plan before you code.
Your app should have at least 3 main features and a styled, interactive front end that’s connected to a back end.
You need to score at least 70 points to pass.
You will be presenting these projects at the end of Foundations.