Your project
Your project demonstrates how you meet the requirements for the grade you're taking.
The aim and scope of your project is entirely up to you. It's an opportunity for you to let your creative juices flow.
Stuck for ideas?
Find inspiration from the example projects linked from each grade's syllabus.
Consider what you want to do on your journey to experience.
The process
Tell the story of your project through diary entries and uploads: what you planned to do and what you actually did; the challenges you faced and how you overcame them; the code you wrote and how you improved it.
We don't expect: bug free software, the "right answer"™, something finished (code is never finished).
Rather....
We encourage you to: reflect, refine and improve your project, learn, integrate and apply the core concepts for the grade you're taking, apply both your creative (intuitive) AND analytical (rational) sides.
When you have a working first draft of your project, submit it for assessment.
Then a mentor engages with you through a discussion and code review of your project.
They have two aims:
- To push you to make your project better than you ever imagined possible.
- To gather evidence of your level of attainment for the grade you're taking.
Your mentor may: ask questions about your project, code and design choices, request new features or reveal bugs for you to fix, point out new resources for you to explore and incorporate into your project.
Their role is to help, support and encourage you.
Feel free to ask questions or seek advice ~ this is a good sign because it is evidence of your engagement. They won't directly contribute to your project (that's your task!), but they will offer pointers and constructive criticism.
When your mentor has enough evidence of your level of attainment, they write your feedback and award a mark for your grade.
If you get 60 or more (out of 100), you've passed.
That's it!
(Now, go do the next grade to continue your journey...)
Essentials
Pay attention!
If you do not fulfil these essential aspects of your project, you may fail your grade ~ an outcome nobody wants.
Every grade has prerequisites.
Please ensure you meet the prerequisites for the grade you are taking or you may find yourself out of your depth and struggle.
When you submit your project for assessment you must confirm you have:
- Explained your motivation and described the aims, objectives and audience for your project ~ tell us what it does, who it's for and why you made it.
- Recorded your technical decisions, design choices and described any problems you faced ~ tell us about the choices and decisions you made, your approach to working on the project and how you engaged with any difficulties encountered.
- Attached ALL the code and assets needed for your project to work ~ clearly label and describe all the code and other assets required for a mentor to run, check and review your project.
- Described how to run and interact with your project ~ we want clear instructions telling the mentor, and any other user, how to engage with and run your project.
- Confirmed the submission is entirely your own original work ~ cheating and plagiarism will result in immediate disqualification and barring from CodeGrades.
Finally, we ask you remember how we behave together on CodeGrades.
Best of luck!