Chingu Voyage Team Projects Lineup
Projects for teams to reverse-engineer & build so you don’t freak out when the project-teams are launched ;p
What is going on here!?
So you signed up for a Chingu Voyage team project and just got thrown into a random chat with people from 70+ different countries. You’re with 3–4 other team-mates who are at this point probably strangers.
You’ve never done anything like this before and you’re confused AF. What we going to build?!
Don’t worry, this article is going to help you through this!
Step 1 — As a team: Pick a project to reverse-engineer or a completely new idea to build.
Step 2 — Accept that team projects are hard and your challenges will be numerous. Be open to the challenges and know that determination is everything.
Step 3: Take ownership & *finish* the project, regardless of what happens. Developers ship projects/products — they don’t stay on the tutorial treadmill.
Adapting to changing constraints and producing finished work is how you develop skills & confidence as a developer (not to mention get a job).
If you take ownership of the project and are determined to finish no matter what happens, you will become a better developer and will create more opportunities for yourself.
It will not be easy. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 😉
p.s. Some teams spend too much time trying to pick which project to do and they fail. Don’t be that team!
Don’t worry, we’ve made it easy! Pick one of these projects to reverse-engineer and clone it as a team. The foundational skills you’ll learn working as a remote dev team are more important than what you will build right now.
Tier-1 aka the Toucans — Clone a cool Bot Landing Page!
Tier-1 teams are at the html to early javascript phase of their learning journey.
Some teams spend too much time trying to pick which project to do and they fail. Don’t be that team! Pick one quickly and get started.
Option 1: Clone a landing page!
#1 — Tickybot (this landing page and bot was built by a Tier-3 team in Voyage-2 — big shout-out to Zsolt Meszaros who designed the landing page!)
#2 — Gitlab
#3 — Atomist
Note: The main skillset & benefit from this project is learning to code collaboratively and work with others. What you clone doesn’t matter as much as getting started and learning how to code collaboratively.
Option 2 — Don’t clone, create a landing page for your own idea!
Here are some examples Tier-1 teams have done in the past:
Code-O-Clock — Now you can schedule meetings, code,
and get automated summaries, right in Slack.
Stylesheet Library for Reddit (a project from Voyage-1)
qBot — qBot’s specialty is finding answers to all of your coding questions.
Option 3 — Advanced Tier-1s — Clone the basic functionality of Momentum
(See Tier-2 below) — Note: only do this if it’s within the abilities of the team.
Here are some clone examples of past Tier-1 teams have built:
Donut landing page clone (beautifully done!)
Paypal-bot splash page clone (this one is a great example of how if your team-members are up for the challenge you can increase the difficulty: this page was created with React!)
Tier-2 aka the Geckos — Reverse-engineer Trello, build a chrome extension or help a nonprofit!
Tier-2 members are around the intermediate projects area.
Option 1: Clone Trello or build a Chrome Extension.
Clone Trello and add some unique functionality.
Clone a “next-tab chrome-extension”. What the ?*!% is a next-tab chrome-extension you ask? See the links below.
Here is a list of Chrome Extensions to clone.
Option 2: Build something completely new!
Come up with a fresh new idea or something that can be valuable to others!
This option is particularly good for members who have worked in teams before (especially former Voyage members).
Option 3: Find a nonprofit and build something for them.
This is the first time we’re adding this option so it’s an experiment. We’ve noticed that often people have connections or know of a nonprofit that could use some help.
One of Chingu’s larger goals is to facilitate projects that create impact. Nonprofit projects definitely help with that.
Teams have worked on nonprofit projects in the past.
Here’s an example.
Here’s another example.
What have past Tier-2 teams built? (some examples)
Bookmark.it — a bookmarking tool! (pivot idea)
TurtlesTab — a super helpful next-tab chrome extension! (pivot idea)
Dev-dash — a clean and gorgeous github repo viewer (clone)
Trello (clone)
Momentum (clone)
Warning: don’t let the project scope get out of hand and be realistic with what you & your team aim to build.
Tier-3 aka the Bears — Build a full-stack app or build a bot!
Tier-3 members are between the Advanced projects and backend. For Tier-3, there is more room for flexibility with choosing projects, as people here often have already finished a Voyage Build-to-Learn project before and they can confidently lead a team to success.
Option 1: Build a full-stack application, aim to create value and/or impact
Reverse-engineer Jobbatical — the basic functionality. Or reverse-engineer Airbnb. Or Twitter.
I personally recommend coming up with a new idea that would have similar functionality as Jobbatical and build that. Maybe you can come up with an app that could help people in some way?
Here are 4examples of Tier-3 full-stack projects by teams that aim to create impact and help others:
Idea Nebulae —
A place to share ideas & connect them to teams who build (this started in Voyage-2 & will be in active development in Voyage-3 as well)
Co/ment —
Mentoring matchmaker for developers (this started in Voyage-1 and still in development and is *being used*, prepping for an official launch soon)
Kronos Timzoner —
Allow team members to see actual time in their timezones based on your time input (without having to do anything).
Wanderful —
Discover new locations to visit. Click Generate Random Destination below to start your journey! (Developed in Voyage-2)
Option 2: Build a bot.
In the past few months, Chingu has been a bot-building factory. Just have a look at the Chingu-Projects Master List and you’ll find many examples of bots to get ideas flowing. There are also about 10 bot projects currently ongoing which aren’t on that list yet.
Bonus points if you come up with project idea that can improve our community and help with the Chingu mission to create a builder’s paradise for developers!
Chingu Pair-Programming bot
Tickybot
Autobot (There’s no landing page for Autobot yet but you’ll see it in your team-chat)
Option 3: Find a nonprofit and build something for them.
This is the first time we’re adding this option so it’s an experiment. We’ve noticed that often people have connections or know of a nonprofit that could use some help.
One of Chingu’s larger goals is to facilitate projects that create impact. Nonprofit projects definitely help with that.
Teams have worked on nonprofit projects in the past. Here’s an example. Here’s another example.
Does the team have to follow this exactly?
No, we’ve tried to find a balance between structure and flexibility. Flexibility is important.
Remember that, regardless of what you’re building, learning to code collaboratively is the biggest skill you will learn here.
Once you learn these collaborative code skills, you’ll be an entirely different developer. More confident, more capable, more employable.
