It is time. Your final project for this course. This is the capstone project that you'll be showing off to demonstrate all the things that you've learned so far. This is awesome.

Before we dive into what your project is going to be about, we need to establish some ground rules.

This is the time to dive into React libraries you've gotten interested in, or play with APIs that would have taken too long to figure out during a shorter project week. This is the time to make the app that you've always wanted but never had, write up a bunch of custom CSS, and really put your skills on display.

Because we're asking you to show off a specific set of skills, we have some requirements. It should be obvious that one of the requirements is that you need to use the things that you learned during this course. This isn't the time to build a game with Unity or explore the MEAN stack or try and whip up a React Native app. You've done a ton of learning already — it's time to apply all of that knowledge.

The listed requirements below are guidelines that should help you to determine what the complexity of your project should be. They are not hard and fast rules, and final project approval is up to your leads and SECs, who will be acting as project managers.

Your project must use a non-trivial Rails backend. Consult the following list for examples of things to include. You do not need to include all of these things, and the final decision of what must be included will be up to your project managers.

• Auth
• Tests
• Multiple has_many_through relationships
• Seeds from a complex data set
• Custom routes
• Custom controller/model methods
• Basic database query optimizations
• Background jobs for slow actions
• Sockets or email integration
• One significant refactor
• Validation

Your product must use a React based frontend. Consult the following list for examples of things to include. You do not need to include all of these things, and the final decision of what must be included will be up to your project manager (your instructor).

• Auth
• Tests
• Interacting with a complex API
• Redux
• Custom CSS
• One significant refactor

• Kanban/Scrum Board: Because this will be the most complex project you've made during this course, you'll need something to keep you organized. We recommend Trello or a Github Project Board. Use this to track what you're doing and what you need to work on. It's also a great idea to keep track of bugs that you're not going to immediately fix.

• Pomodoro Timer: If you don't take breaks, you'll end up hurting your eyes, getting RSI (repetitive strain injury) or burning yourself out. The Pomodoro Timer method lets you put in solid chunks of work while also giving you regular breaks. We like Marinara Timer, since it's nicely customizable.

• Google Fonts — An amazing resource for fonts of all types
• Grid Garden / Flexbox Froggy — Great for getting familiar with Grid and Flexbox
• CSS Tricks — Learn yourself some sweet CSS
• Semantic UI React / ReactStrap — CSS styling using React components
• Postman — Test your backend without having to build out a frontend
• Heroku — Simple, free hosting for your site
• App Ideas — some ideas for non-standard apps
• How to hide API keys in Javascript / Ruby | option 2