For much of Phase 5, your time is your own. This is, however, a great opportunity for you to practice good time management. There are some specific milestones during this process. Your instructor will determine the exact timeline for each of the following:
This is when you get to pitch whatever pie in the sky things you want. We're not yet worried about what your MVP is or whether your idea is practical — just come up with ideas. You won't be starting on your project until Day 3, so think of this as your research and development phase. Learn Auth, learn Redux, learn how to use complex APIs and libraries. Your instructor will give you an idea of what is and isn't practical, and some guidance on the technologies you're looking at.
You will have your project ready to pitch to a panel including a lead and your instructor. You'll have the models drawn out, a sketched out version of what your frontend will look like, and evidence that you're able to use the APIs and libraries that you're going to implement. You'll also have a proposal for what your MVP will look like. You're expected to have the MVP complete a week from this day. Together you and your instructors will determine the best project to move forward with.
You'll be taking part in a retro every Friday. This will be the time to talk about what went right, what went wrong, what roadblocks you're still up against and your plan of attack for getting over them.
You'll also have two mandatory check-ins with your instructor leading up to your MVP presentation. After that, office hours will be available to sign-up for, but will not be mandatory.
You will present your completed MVP to your project manager and a lead instructor. You should have all the functionality that you promised during your project proposal, as well as a plan of attack for the next week.
By mid-week, you should have your project done. Time after this should be spent styling and fixing minor bugs only — you should be done with all the core functionality.
This is the day that you'll be showing off your projects to your peers!