TCL-20 was one of our first “advanced” projects where developers take more responsibility for the work including contributing to project decisions such as story splitting and what features to build.

For this cohort we had four developers from previous Smart Shopping List projects return to build an app that lets you explore Wikipedia entries near you.

The app leverages the Google Maps API to render a map with pins pulled from Wikipedia's Nearby API. Users control whether to share their location with the app via the browser’s built-in geolocation API.

The app was built as a single-page, progressive web app using React.js deployed to Netlify via continuous deployment.

Check out the team’s work here!

• Production app: Explore Your World (works great on your mobile device!)
• GitHub Repo

Kudos

This team was the first advanced project team to implement search functionality within the app. This was a multi-week effort that saw every member of the team contribute, passing the code from one person to another, solving problems as they went, with Rachel taking ownership of the feature to guide it to completion.

Some of the standout traits and accomplishments of the team include the following:

• Caitlyn taught the team about what it was like to work as a developer and compared her experiences in her position with her experiences with The Collab Lab. She is an excellent planner and did a great job of keeping the team on track.
• DeVon was great at helping the team see the bigger picture on where the project was going. She consistently showed great confidence in the team and their ability to complete the project.
• Rachel took ownership of the Search feature, determined to finish it. She researched, tried different ideas, and live-coded for the team as they worked through this difficult feature.
• Shayne once again showed off his design skills and kept the team moving with his quick ability to summarize a problem or concept.