Coding Bootcamp — First Project

The third week of my coding bootcamp I was given the challenge of creating a terminal app from scratch. This was to be completed in groups of 2 using a process called pair programming which I would highly recommend. Here is a good article if you wish to know more about it. https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-benefits-and-pitfalls-of-pair-programming-in-the-workplace-e68c3ed3c81f

The first step of the design process was to brainstorm ideas for what we could create in the very limited time frame (2 days). After coming up with an idea we then had to plan out the features by constructing user stories. We decided on which features would be part of the MVP and what would be our stretch goals. A Trello board was used to keep track of our progress. The assignment also required a large amount of documentation so we needed to make sure that we took that into account when creating our project timeline.
The idea we came up with was creating a basic game out of a random maze generator. I was very excited to make this game as it would allow me to put into practice what I had been learning in class. I have always had much greater success when I have taken a practical approach to my learning and this project helped tremendously. The game would also require learning and using concepts that had not been covered in class and that I had only brief prior experience with. The maze creation algorithm takes advantage of a computer science principle called recursion. This was highly challenging and we had to overcome many bugs during the creation of our app. A simple mistake while using recursion can be quite hard to debug. I found it quite beneficial to run through my program 1 step at a time to help figure out where the problem occurred.
The completion of this assignment was very rewarding and seeing something you have created slowly take shape kept me motivated throughout the project. The tight deadline of this project forced us to set realistic goals, although I plan on adding extra features when I get time.
Feel free to give my game a try, I will paste the GitHub link below:
Next week we are moving on to HTML, CSS and web design. I have always considered myself not to be the greatest designer so it will be interesting how much I can improve my skills in this area. I believe if you maintain a growth mindset anything is possible with enough practice.