Final Project

Proposal

Before you begin your project, we would like to gauge what kinds of project you would like to do. We would like a clear and concise description of what your project will provide for users, and a rough idea of the technologies and tech stack you will use for the final project (Express, React, Vite, MongoDB, etc.), and how you plan to deploy your app at the end. You are welcome to include topics we haven't yet or will not discuss in this course, as this project is a chance to explore new ideas and technologies in JavaScript.

You will submit your proposal as a text document responding to the below questions to Canvas:

• Are you working solo or as a pair? If you are working as a pair, who are the group members?
• Write a pitch for your final project. This should include a clear description of the project's goals and what it will provide for users.
• Describe the tech stack for this project, including the main frontend and backend technologies you will use, and what your plan for deploying the app will be.
• Include your goals for what you would like to be done with before the scheduled milestone check-in. For this milestone, you should consider prioritizing the back-end functionality first before the front-end, but it is up to you to pace yourself and hold yourself to your own scheduled goals.
• If you intend to use unique, new technologies we will not discuss in this course (see Extra Credit section), include them within your proposal so that we can verify whether or not it will count for extra credit!

After submitting your proposals, we will return to you with feedback on them promptly. You are free to start working on them or setting up your projects beforehand, so long as your project scope will fall within our rubric specifications and you do not get an outright rejection of your proposal from the instructors. Please look at the provided rubric for the final project to get a better sense of what kinds of projects will be appropriate for this assignment. If you have any questions about your proposal or want to run an idea by us, please feel free to reach out to us on Ed Discussion or during office hours!

Milestone

It is important to pace yourself and give yourself enough time to develop and research new technologies for this final project. This is why we've explicitly required a milestone check-in and for you to schedule your goals for it in advance in the proposal.

You will submit your milestone as a text document responding to the below questions to Gradescope:

• Have you met your goals for this milestone that you defined in your proposal?
• Describe any setbacks and challenges you are facing at this moment in the project, either related to this milestone or otherwise.
• At this point in time, are you on track to completing this final project in the alloted time?

Presentation

During our last scheduled class on April 23rd, you will be expected to present your final project to the class. This presentation should be around 5-10 minutes long and should include a demo of your project, an overview of the technologies you used, and a reflection on the development process. This is a chance to show off your hard work and creativity, and to share your project with your classmates. More details about the presentation format and expectations will be provided as we get closer to the date, including where to submit the slides for your presentation. You are expected to present in person during class, but if you have an excused absence for that day, please reach out to us and we can work something out for you to present remotely or submit a recorded presentation for the instructor.

Since this presentation is before the final project submission, you are not expected to have a fully polished and completed project by the time of the presentation. However, you should have a working demo that you can show to the class, and you should be able to talk about your development process and the technologies you used in a thoughtful way. This is also a chance to get feedback from your classmates and instructors on your project before the final submission, so we encourage you to be open to constructive criticism and suggestions during your presentation!

Extra Credit

You can gain up to 30% extra credit on this final project, usable for the grade of this project or applied to lost points in previous homework grades. We will award 10% extra credit for each unique, new techonology you use that is not covered in this course. These technologies should be substantial libraries or frameworks that add significant functionality to the app. For instance, a small library like react-hot-toast won't be applicable.

Some ideas for technologies include:

• Three.js for 3D
• Framer Motion or React Spring for animations
• Passport.js for validation
• Prisma or Drizzle for database interactions
• WebSockets or Socket.io for real time communication/live data/multiplayer
• AI applications that make use of libraries like openai-node or anthropic-sdk-typescript must have a novel use other than a chatbot (which we already did!) Points will not be given for just connecting to an API and returning chat responses, consider prompt engineering, fine tuning, computer vision/images, or other AI integrations.
• We will NOT count any UI libraries or frameworks for extra credit. We will need to use at least one UI library for the frontend of this application, any additional will not count towards extra credit (unless there is sufficient complexity in how you plan to use them).

Rubric

All final projects will be graded with the same rubric, with 4 sections. In total, you can get up to 13 points - and we're hoping everyone can get all points! Below you can see the requirements for getting points in each section.

Suggestions

This is a selection of approved proposals and various project ideas to help inspire you for your final project! These are truncated versions of proposals, so please use these as a reference but go into more detail in your own proposals so we can understand your project and give you feedback on it. These examples have a milestone 2, but you can consider the project presentation date as the milestone 2 for your own project and set your goals accordingly.