For your Ironhack final project, you have 2 weeks to develop an idea of your choice. You will present your final project at the Hackshow.
This document contains all the relevant information pertaining to the final project phase of the course. Let's start with some basic facts to keep in mind.
- Presenting is required to complete the course.
- Attendance is mandatory (even though there are no lectures).
- Build a (somewhat) original idea. Read more about choosing an idea
- Planning is essential to project success. Read more about planning
- You will be assigned a mentor that will act as your advisor. Read more about mentors
- Instructors and TAs will still help when you get stuck.
- Projects need to be deployed to the Internet and on a real domain.
- Free .co domains for your project will be provided for you via email.
- Two different presentations need to be prepared: a 5 minute presentation and a 1 minute presentation.
- Presentations require slides, both for the 5 minute and 1 minute versions. Read more about presentations
- beloved
- SmallVictory
- Purravida
- Wishywash
- TurfSurf
- Gighub
- G2Salary
- Drones United
- BlueGreenChic
- Government, Who? Miami!
Selecting a good idea that you enjoy will keep you motivated throughout the final project phase of the course. Here are some guidelines to help you choose an idea you think is cool.
- Your idea should be (somewhat) original. It doesn't have to be the next Snapchat though.
- Select something you are passionate about. It will motivate you to keep working on it and do it well.
- Think of problems that you encounter in your own life. You probably already have a lot of useful insights into those areas.
- Don't settle for an idea that's just okay. You will be working on this thing for 2 weeks. Taking the time to think of a good idea is a great investment.
- Block off 30 minutes a day to brainstorm ideas if you are worried about choosing one.
- Get feedback about your idea from your classmates and from Ironhack staff. They can help you refine your idea or decide if you should find another.
Planning, organization and project management are absolutely essential to be productive during project time. Taking the time to get organized and make a proper plan of attack are probably the best investments of time you can make for your project. Here are some guidelines to follow for planning.
- Milestones - Break down the project into milestones based on features.
- Prioritize - It's important to take the time to figure out the best order in which you should complete your milestones. Your priorities should roughly correspond to the order that users will interact with the different features of your app. The overall importance of each milestone to your app should also come into play in this decision.
- Use a tool - Use Trello or similar software for planning your project. Record your milestones and priorities in that tool. Pen and paper are useful but they are not enough.
- Create a "Wish List" - Create a special Wish List for features that you would like to have but aren't the most important.
- Mentors - Your mentor will help you determine the order in which you should complete your milestones. Read more about mentors
- Your Mentor - You will be assigned a mentor that will act as your project advisor.
- 2 meetings - You will have at least 2 meetings with your mentor: at the start and at the halfway point.
- Assistance - They will assist with:
- Refining the scope of your project so that it's feasible in 2 weeks
- Prioritizing your tasks
- Planning your database schema
- Finding APIs, libraries and other tools
- Project management
- Communication - Your mentor will be on Slack to chat with. It's up to them to set boundries about how and when you should reach out to them.
- Be patient - Please keep in mind that mentors have jobs of their own. They won't be on call every minute of every day.
Instructors and Teaching Assistants are still your primary resource for the day to day troubleshooting of your project. They can help you get over the inevitable roadblocks of coding.
Your presentations are the first and only impressions both the judges and public will have of your final project. Make it count - it can make or break you. You spent a lot of time and effort on your project, don't sell yourself short by neglecting your presentation.
You will have to present 2-3 times (depending on whether you are selected as a finalist):
- You'll do a 5 minute presentation in the Internal Hackshow.
- You'll do a 1 minute presentation in the Public Hackshow.
- You'll do a modified 5 minute presentation in the Public Hackshow only if you are chosen as a finalist.
- Example 5 minute presentation: TurfSurf.
- Example 1 minute presentation: Tabtervention.
Your 5 minute presentation should be roughly 50% talking (with slides) and 50% demo. Since it's the longer of the two presentations, you have more time to get into the meat of your app. What follows is a recommended structure for your presentation and then some guidelines to keep in mind while you are creating it.
- Title Slide: To have up right before you start. It should have your name and the name of your application.
- Introduction: Who you are, where you are from and why you are at Ironhack. Mention something interesting about you. Try to say something that helps you transition to the Problem section.
- Problem: The problem your project is trying to solve.
- Connection: Your connection to the problem. Don't include this if you already covered it in the previous sections.
- Solution: What your project is and how your project proposes to solve the problem.
- Demo: Live demo of the main features of your project.
- Technologies: Overview of important technologies used, the ones that set you apart (APIs, gems, etc.). Don't bother mentioning the stuff everyone used like Ruby, Rails, GitHub, Heroku, etc.
- Roadmap: Things that you would improve upon or add in the future, if you had the time.
- Closing Slide: Basically identical to your Title Slide but add a Thank you!
Example 5 minute presentation: TurfSurf.
- Practice, practice, practice is the difference between a mediocre presentation and a great one.
- 50% slides and 50% live demo should be roughly how you spend your time in the 5 minute presentation.
- Make your slides online using an appealing template on Slides, Prezi or Google Slides. It's important to have it online in case you can't demo from you computer.
- Follow the outline above as a baseline structure for your presentation.
- You need a slide that says Demo to prompt you to switch to your app.
- Practice switching from slides to the app and back. It can be more awkward than you think.
- Don't assume the judges know Ruby and Rails. Explain what the different gems in your app do and why you needed them.
- Practice, practice, practice even more. Seriously, your presentation will suck if you don't practice.
- Time yourself when you practice. Are you going too fast? Too slow?
- Use index cards or other notes to help you during the delivery of your presentation.
- Demo from your domain. You don't want to be the only n00b demoing from localhost.
- Plan and practice your demo - Don't wing it as things can go horribly wrong.
- Show off as much functionality as you can in the demo.
- Focus on what makes your project unique if you have too much functionality for the time allotted.
- Have multiple tabs open to avoid time-consuming forms. You can have your forms pre-filled in different tabs. Typing in your username and password is not an effective use of presentation time.
- Use multiple browsers for different logged-in users. You can have different browsers (or incognito mode) to have multiple users logged in if needed.
- Show your app working. Don't give the impression that you are faking everything by having all the pages pre-opened. Submit your forms, perform your searches.
You will be evaluated on:
- Presentation (How well did the student communicate?)
- Idea (How effective is the idea at solving the problem for its users?)
- Technical complexity (How difficult was the finished work?)
- Features (How many features were implemented in the the finished work?)
Special awards:
- Best Presentation
- Most Innovative Idea
- Best Design
- Best User Experience
- Greatest Impact
- Most Technically Complex
- Most Features
- Best Execution
Your 1 minute pitch should be designed to get people to vote for you at the Public Hackshow. In your 1 minute pitch you don't have time for a demo or many of the other parts of your 5 minute version. Consider this a quick pitch of you and your idea. What follows is a recommended structure for your presentation and then some guidelines to keep in mind while you are creating it.
- Title Slide - an appealing slide with both your name and the name of your application.
- About Me Slide - a slide with your basic information (where you are from, previous occupation, etc.) as well as one interesting fact about you. You don't have much time so keep this super short.
- 1-2 Problem Slides - briefly explain the problem you are trying to solve.
- 1-2 Presenting My App Slides - introduce your application, briefly describe what it is and what it does to solve the problem.
- 1-2 Screenshot Slides - show off the main screens of your application.
- Closing Slide - identical to the title slide except it should say something similar to Vote for me!
Example 1 minute presentation: Tabtervention.
- Practice, practice, practice is the difference between a mediocre presentation and a great one. Practicing your 1 minute presentation takes a lot less time so there's no excuse.
- Create your slides online using an appealing template on Google Slides. We will have all the slides on a single computer so it's important that your presentation is easy to share.
- Include your project's name and your name in all the slides if you can. That way the public knows who to vote for.
- Be creative in the way you pitch your idea. The 1 minute presentation is all about the idea and your delivery, so find a way to present your idea in an entertaining way.
- Use index cards or other notes to help you during the delivery of your presentation.
If you are chosen as a finalist you will get the chance to deliver your 5 minute presentation again. Keep in mind that the audience will already have seen your 1 minute presentation, so you will need to make some adjustments.
- Remove redundant slides. You will already have covered who you are and more or less what the app does.
- Focus on your demo. That's the major thing that didn't have time to do in your 1 minute presentation.