IT Summer Camp 2019
Mobile First Challenges
Start
The first day of July was a day when yet another year of IT Summer Camp (ITSC) at localhost started which we all attended. This year’s topic was “Mobile first challenges” and was aimed on development of Android applications.
On the first day we got to meet company employees with whom we were in touch mostly during the ITSC. We went through ITSC roadmap, were introduced to what we were to develop, how we would do it and what technologies were to be used. Basic company info was also shared with us. We can sum it up as an organising day. After the introduction meeting we had safety instruction training and that was the end of the first day.
Everybody for themselves…
Following days of the first week was about attending lectures with our mentors that were focused on SCRUM methodology, introduction to Git, UI and UX design and, of course, introduction to Android Studio and Kotlin programming language. All the lectures were cornerstones for further duration of ITSC. Next, we started the first part of our time in the company — app development on which every intern worked individually. We started with preparation of design, functionality, studying documentations and we smoothly moved onto coding itself. Same assignment was developed into 7 unique apps.
Company atmosphere
During this part of ITSC we got familiar with even more employees of the company and we got to know each other better. The atmosphere was very nice, relaxed and friendly. This was mentioned several times on our retrospective meetings within SCRUM. All employees — colleagues — were friendly and willing to help explaining problems when they occurred. During whole ITSC we were allowed to use benefits for the employees — fun zone, flexible working hours, company events and when needed — home office. A great benefit was also workshops completing lectures that we needed for further growth.
All for one team
Somewhere around our midterm of ITSC we entered phase 2 — working on a real project in team. Project specification was given to us and it was up to us to deal with this. We worked on a tracking app for dog owners. App included several features like tracking distance, saving tracks, measuring callories, adding one’s pets to list and gamification was also introduced via badges and levels reached in individual categories. Work within a team was tough at first but thanks to meetings we bonded stronger and it went better and better. Every team member was determined, motivated and ready to give all they knew. As days went by we learnt who excelled at what and that was a key to distributing tasks which was improving all the time. When desperately in need of their help — our mentors were keen to guide us literally any time. A big thank you goes to them.
Final
Our ITSC 2019 ended with a final review and demo. All team members are thankful for this opportunity to get a taste of real job in a software company, real project and problems, but also fun. Each of us would gladly recommend this to others. Attitude of our main mentors — SCRUM master Marta, Android Devs Stano and Jozko, QA lead Evka, Chief Growth Officer Miso and Software Architect Mato was incredible. Also all other employees were at hand when needed.
We gained valuable skills, record to our CVs, maybe a future job and we got to know many super, wise, intelligent and funny people. For this opportunity a big thanks also goes to the CEO of the company — Miroslav Ivanicko and CTO — Vladislav Jevcak. Thank you!
ITSC team 2019
