Capstone:Web Development and Programming
Over the past few months, I learned the basics of developing web applications through an online course on Udemy (The Web Developer Bootcamp by Colt Steele). In addition to enhancing my general skills in coding, I learned how to utilize HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Node, Express servers, Mongo databases, and various other utilities in order to produce a website.
| Cory Thrutchley 2021 | |
|---|---|
| House | STEM |
| Advisor | Suzan Ozkilic |
| Plans | Electrical Engineering, OSU |
| Advice | I have three pieces of advice. (1) Base your project on the house that you are in and what you want to do in the future. For example, if you are in the liberal arts house and you want to be a teacher, do something like an internship at an elementary school; if you are in the careers house and you want to be a carpenter, build a treehouse or a cabinet from scratch. The more your project relates to your future career, the better. (2) Devote at least two hours every single weekday to your capstone project. It’s better to get done two months early than to rush two weeks before the showcase. (3) Communicate with your advisor often (once a week or once a month, depends on your project) to let them know how you are doing and ask them for advice. If you do those three things, your capstone will rock! |
| Type | Presentation |
| Discipline | Computer Science |
How It Began
My initial plan was to produce a web application designed for studying physics, similar to Khan Academy, where you could solve word problems and run physics simulations and games. But web development turned out to be very hard to learn!
How It Changed
At first I tried to learn web design on my own using w3schools.com, but it became very difficult without supervision. Mrs. Suzan suggested that I complete an online course on Udemy about web development, which brought me to The Web Developer Bootcamp. This course has been great, but it has taken so long to go through that I was unable to bring the physics application to full completion before showcase. So my showcase instead consists of a slideshow explaining how simple web pages are produced.
Reflection
As I have previously mentioned, I learned how to write HTML, CSS, and Javascript files and sync them together in order to create very simple web apps. Then I learned how to use a variety of tools through the Node Package Manager (npm), including Express servers and Mongo databases, to greatly increase the functionality of a web application. I also learned how to handle HTTP requests on an application and create different routes (pages), validate user inputs, add authentication and authorization to allow users to store their account information on a database, and handle various errors and communicate those errors to the user with a warning. Overall, this course has greatly increased my understanding of how websites actually function and my skills in programming.