It helps to give direction to what you're doing when the functionality already exists and you're trying to add on to it.
Having an existing codebase more closely resembles the job field.
What constitutes green vs. brown field? Is what Boxtrot-Prime did this time a green field project? They basically gutted the whole front end, and deployed an independent project that is only connected to the back end through AJAX calls. On top of that, the back end wrote new endpoints. It's basically all green.
Where do you learn more? You can't get very far in a greenfield project in two weeks, especially when you're learning a new language/technology. Brownfield education sort of depends on the app. In looking-for there wasn't much new information to learn from. It was more repetition, and refactoring to cement existing knowledge. Unless the brownfield app is in a totally new language/framework. Then it's got the same sort of upsides/downsides as the greenfield
Launch on Friday? Give a better idea of what research is needed. Start writing issues and acceptance steps. Get project pulled down and deployed locally. "Losing" a day for the holiday was hard. Maybe issues could still be written collaboratively on Thursday or Friday before.
Also, some extra heads up on the project would be nice. Knowing that doing another personal project was an option would have been good to know in advance, or coming up with ideas for issues and features on the projects.
Pairing on pre-work?
Accountability in the pre-work ( to make sure everyone is actually ready on Monday )