Project: Intention Timer
Group Member Names: Hanna Kim, Chadrick Dickerson, Nick Hart
Goals and Expectations for the Project (What does each group member hope to get out of this project? What do we want to achieve as a team? How will we know that we're successful?):
We definitely want to meet all of the technical learning goals - to develop a better understanding of clean semantic HTML, CSS and dry JavaScript that adheres to SRP, event bubbling and delegation, local storage. We want to prioritize learning over completion.
With this also being our first group project, we want to learn to navigate group dynamics as developers. This also includes efficient git workflow.
Team strengths & collaboration styles (consider discussing your Pairin qualities here):
We're all inherently collaborative people, and are very team oriented. We enjoy working in group settings because it's a valuable way to learn, and we enjoy helping each other learn.
How we can use our strengths to overcome obstacles:
We're not afraid to turn to each other to ask for help. Three minds are better than one. Three's a party. Three's a company. We're like the three muskateers.
Schedule Expectations (When are we available to work together and individually? What constraints do we have? Make sure to discuss the remote questions above in regards to this section):
We're planning on taking full advantage of the project work time we'll have in class. Aside from that, our plan is to meet after 6 and until 10 when needed on weekdays, and we'll play it by ear for the weekend.
Communication Expectations (How and often will we communicate? How do we keep lines of communication open? How will we make decisions as a team? How will we communicate about our emotional and mental well-being with each other?):
We'll plan on staying in touch daily via slack. We have our phone numbers posted in the channel if slack goes down.
Abilities & Growth Expectations (Technical strengths and areas for desired improvement):
The areas we feel least comfortable in include CSS, event bubbling, function control flow, passing arguments into functions and seeing opportunities to refactor code.
Workload Expectations (What features do we each want to work on?):
We'll plan on starting with driver navigator, and divying up the work as best we see fit as we go.
Workflow Expectations (Git workflow/Tools/Code Review/Reviewing Pull Requests/Debugging and Problem-solving Techniques):
We're planning on building on all the habits that we've put in place so far, from pseudocoding to using a PR template and code reviews.
Pomodoro Break Schedule:
We'll follow a regular pom schedule, close to 30 minutes on, 10 minutes off, with a longer break every 4 poms.
Expectations for giving and receiving feedback:
We'll follow Turing's template for feedback, keeping things actionable, specific and kind. We're all open for direct feedback.
Additional Remote Considerations:
No real logistical considerations other than the scheduling ones, which have been discussed earlier. Communication wise is the same as above.
Project management tools we will use (GitHub projects or Trello are popular tools):
We'll use Github projects.
Day 1 Agenda: The plan will be to tackle iteration 0 and see how far we can go - we'll base the rest of the schedule on how tomorrow goes.
What is your approach to working on a team? My approach to teamwork is to start with open communication. I feel it's important for team members to feel like they have space where their thoughts and time are valued. If I notice a teammate is not speaking up as much, I try leave space before answering and try to direct questions to them here and there to show I want to know what they think too.
What is one technical takeaway from this project? There are a lot of different ways to solve a problem - use what you know and can do first. I want to be able to work with more complex concepts but recognize I need to be solid on basics before that in order to be able to grow.
What is one personal/professional takeaway from this project? I can make time and respect timelines when I work in a team but have trouble doing the same for solo work. If I can show up and stick to a scheduled time to meet with and work with teammates, I should be able to do so for myself too.
What was your biggest win/celebration/learning during this project? Feeling like I understood more of the logic than I thought would - I started the project very worried that I didn't know enough/how am I supposed to learn all of Mod 1 material over the weekend/thought I just wouldn't be able to piece it all together.
Knowing what you know now, if you could go back in time, what's one thing you would have done differently regarding this project? Acknowledge there's going to be many times where I'm going to be feeling confused when I'm coding and shorten the amount of time between stressing about something not working immediately and getting back to work - instead I should ask for help earlier on, try working on a different problem, or take a break and do something else.
I was very surprised to see even without asking for help (because I was afraid I was bothering someone, not because I didn't need it), if I went back to a function on the project after working on a mythical creature/taking a break, I was able to piece it together somehow.
What was a specific technical challenge you faced?
One bug I just couldn't resolve on my own was setting up the conditions for slapCard() - How I had the conditions originally set up worked for most circumstances: A game's centralPile could be slapped and cards distributed to winner/loser unless there were fewer than 3 cards on the pile. Then I would get an error message that certain variables I had set up to evaluate to the 2nd and 3rd from bottom cards were undefined.
Even though I knew what the error was referring to, I just felt there had to be a way to keep all conditions (are the top card(s) a J, double, or sandwich) together since the result was the same (the pile goes to the person who slapped on J, double, or sandwich) and finally got some input from my mentor those would have to be separated out.
What is one personal/professional takeaway from this project? Not to give up so wholeheartedly when things get rough/ believe in myself. I couldn't help feeling like I was so behind everyone else on the material covered this mod when I know logically it doesn't help to compare anyone myself. I know is a better mindset to acknowledge that I've been learning this whole time too and only compare my progress to my own the day before.
Based on these takeaways, what is something you want to focus on for the next project? Building grit/resilience - it's ok to give up to take a (limited) break/know when to quit end of day when it's getting late but not the best idea to give up entirely and assume I've failed. Also, getting better at asking for help instead of staring at the same code for hours if it's still not nudging along.