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Satoshi S.
Satoshi S.

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My Journey with Co.Lab DTTP

I just started the Diverse Tech Talent Program provided by Co.Lab. I'm enrolled in the AI-Guided Web Development course. I will be sharing weekly updates here to follow "build in public".

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Week 1 Introduction to the Web

We kicked off with an orientation event that gave us an overview of the program and what to expect.

This week's lecture covered high-level web development concepts, such as frontend, backend, database, and servers. For the assignment, I built a Hello World app using Replit and copied a Problem statement.

Week 2 Understanding Your Project Stack

In the lecture, we learned about the stack we use in this course. We use React(frontend), Express.js(backend), and PostgreSQL (database).

Additionally, I joined a mentor's office hours to ask some questions about the course.

For the assignment, we needed to add user stories to the document. Last week, I used a template but started creating my own project named Deal Board, as I will create the app during the course.

Project Statement: Businesses often have great deals or promotions, but no easy way to share them online. Many lack the technical skills or resources to build and maintain a website. As a result, their deals go unnoticed by potential customers. This project addresses the problem by enabling businesses to upload their deals and showcase them on a public page, allowing users to discover offers and be redirected to the business’s website or physical location.

I'm getting interested in how the course progresses.

Week 3 Mapping Project components

This week, we started defining the scope of projects.
Project Must-Have Features

  • Front page
  • Business register/signup
  • Business Login
  • Business Deal Submittion form
  • Deal View page

This is my first prompt for the Replit Agent.

Please create a front page for DealBoard, an application that connects users with local business deals. 
- Show links to available cities: Vancouver,Toronto,Calgary,Winnipeg,Montreal clicking a city will lead to deals available in that city.
- Include business-facing links:
  - Business Signup
  - Business Login 

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This is the output of the agent.

DealBoard frontpage

Week 4 Expanding the Product

It's already half way through for the lecture section. This week, the instructor talked about Feature Creep. People tend to add excessive feature beyond the MVP scope with the helpf of AI.

For the assignment, I made the rest of pages. One of my favoirte design is the confrimation page for the deal submission. I documneted how to test generated pages manually.

Deal submission confirmation page

Week 5 Managing Application Data with Databases & AI

This week's topic was databases, so the lecture covered different types such as PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Firebase, and more. Naturally, the assignment was to integrate the frontend I previously created with a backend and a connected database.

I started using a database by subscribing to Replit. While the instructor mentioned that the free tier would be sufficient, I decided to upgrade since I’ll need to deploy the project eventually, and Replit makes that easier.

Once I began developing the backend and setting up the database, I encountered a few complex bugs. I learned it's crucial to verify that all features continue to work properly after each update made by the agent.

I added features to update business and deal info.It's a basic CRUD app, but I believe my project is in a good place as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Next week's topic is deployment, and I'm looking forward to it.

Business Dashboard

My deals view

Week 6 Launching Your MVP on Replit

This week's topic was deployment. Since I upgraded my Replit plan last week, I was able to deploy the project directly on Replit. I encountered several configuration bugs, but the AI agent helped me resolve them. My project is now live.

This weekend, we also need to participate in the Hackathon. Probably, I will include my experience with that in next week's update.

Week 7 Product Feedback and Refinement + α

As I mentioned last week, we had a 3 days-long hackathon over the weekend. My team built a fundraising app powered by chimoney(thoug we didn't get to implement the intergation). We placed 5th and unfortunatelyd didn't win a prize. I enjoyed brainstorming ideas and deciding what kind of app to build. Teamwork was the key to this competition.

Presentation slide

Week 7 topic was product feedback and refinement. I asked my wife to try out my app. She gave some UI enhancement ideas and I liked them. One of them was a quick discount button to set the reduced prices.

Quick discounts button

Next week is wrap-up week and we are moving on to the next phase. Selected students will join a project-based internship program provided by Riipen. I don't know much about the program yet but I will write about the experience in the upcoming week.

Week 8 Wrap Up Week

This week was wrap up week. Two months passed so quickly. What I did this week is that I wrote a final reflection and made a demo video of my cap stone project.

Dealboard Demo Video

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