Three Genius App Ideas Built In Two Weeks

Codeworks students showcase their thesis projects

Student Doruk sets the context for Collab: ‘Jeff Bezos at Amazon, is one of the richest men in the world, but his workers are living off food stamps’.

After finishing the six-week junior module, the first test for our senior students is to work on a solo project. Next is a legacy project. Finally, just when their brains are beyond neuroplastic: it’s time to tackle the thesis project.

Thesis projects are tough. Take two weeks, three ideas and one chance to present and the results are impressive. Students present, get grilled with questions and finally relax with a drink, debriefing the whole experience on the terrace. As our motto goes: ‘Coding is better in the sun’.

So let’s take a look at the apps: Singular, Collab and Smart Waiter.

1. First up: Singular 🤓

Think ‘Singular’ and you think: unique. Singular is a skills learning app for all ages, ‘because you’re never too old to learn something new’.

Or in our students’ words: ‘it’s basically the tinder of learning’.

Next album cover? Go team Singular!

The app covers all sorts of categories, from the Geeky to the Weird, along with our personal favourite learning category: Silly.

From a user perspective, the friendly interface is a breeze but as always, there’s room for improvement. Built on React in the front end, Singular neatly uses MySql at the backend. The UI was built mobile first with a blazing fast front end framework, that goes by the name of Bulma.

With a simple tech stack, users can simply swipe to skill up.

Users can send messages about interests or join communities online. Need to train your dog? Singular has your back. Just choose the article entitled: ‘Teach your dog to be your wingman.’

Looking for more useful facts? Choose the ‘Knowledge’ category and discover ‘All you need to know about North Korea’. We love the easy Facebook integration and range of skills on offer. Singular is definitely a unique app in the making.

Students: Pablo, Cristina, David and Christopher.

Students’ summary in 3 words: Learning. No regrets!

GitHub: here

2. Next up: Collab 🤑

First Codeworks, next the world for our ambitious young Xavi.

Bitcoin Bitcoin Bitcoin. If it’s not making you a bit rich, it’s probably driving you a bit mad.

Imagine ‘the first democratic blockchain shared wallet app’. Okay, it’s a mouthful and the description needs work. For us, the crucial part of the thesis project are both the idea and the code. And both those things look good to us.

Collab is a Blockchain bitcoin shared wallet app, designed to quickly agree and pay for group expenses through unanimous voting.

Built on React for the frontend and MySQL on the backend, the intelligent UI uses charts and data representations with chart.js, as well as a few Ant-design elements thrown in for good measure.

Spot the bitcore bit hiding in the tech stack?

Users can log in, create a new wallet and add others to join. Through the Bitcore library, Collab then creates a new wallet with an exclusive public key. Users then make a proposal, for example: ‘spend 0.05 bitcoins on getting a BBQ for a Summer party’. Next, an email goes round all the participants of that user’s wallet. Just like a ballot, users then consider the proposal and vote yes, (let’s buy the BBQ) or no, (let’s wait till payday).

Put simply, if all users vote yes, then the money gets wired to the beneficiary’s account. The result? The world’s most democratic BBQ, all at the tap of an app. Sounds like a clever collaboration to us.

Remember: all wallet users are equal.

Or, in Collab’s words: ‘No one will be able to execute an action, withdraw funds or add another user unilaterally without the consent of the rest’.

Fair’s fair.

Students: Xavi, Doruk, Roger, Carlos and Jon

Students’ summary in 3 words: ‘Challenging, Restructuring, Satisfying’.

GitHub: here

3. Finally: Smart Waiter 🛎

I demand better service! Senior student Ben needs a new app to eat, pay, leave.

What does a panda do? Eats, Shoots and Leaves!

We’ve all been there, you’re starving, waiting to order and could shoot the waiter for being so slow. Meanwhile, your precious lunch break slips away and you wish you’d chosen a take away.

Codeworks students have come up with a nifty solution: Smart Waiter lets you pre-book a table and pay the bill before you’ve arrived. Customers leave on time, restaurant owners save staff costs. It’s a win win.

The tech stack caters for two audiences customers, and restaurants.

With an easy mobile app menu and live check ordering, you can rely on this app not to forget your next order of Paella. The most genius bit? A cost splitting mechanism will divide the dreaded final bill. No more sneaking off without paying your share, or wanting to shoot the waiter for being so slow.

Impressing us with their teamwork, this group reflected on their love-hate relationship with Git and the importance of basic organisation. Just don’t ask us how the restaurant staff would get paid their ‘Smart’ tips. That part is yet to come.

Students: Henry, Lars, Marlon, Edgar and Ben.

Students’ summary in three words: Making Something BIG.

GitHub: here.

High fives all round.

Don’t forget these students had a high pressured, mere two weeks to code and present this projects.

We’re giving each and every senior a high five for their courage presenting these ideas to an audience. They showed us problem, the solution and some absolutely superb code.

Not only that, they communicated the structure of their build and most importantly for us at Codeworks: their lessons learned.

Presentations over, instructors can relax with students.

We’re proud of these students’ grit. Creating an app and presenting what you’ve built to your classmates and instructors? That’s not easy. But with talent and determination, they’ve become software engineers in just three months.

Whether you’ve tried a little coding in the past, or you’re completely new to software engineering, we’d love to hear from you.

To find out more about a Codeworks course, click here