day-plan

🔖
  1. Checkpoint Solo Day-Plan
  2. Socialise

Register

Checkpoint Solo Day-Plan

This sprint you are working on a solo project. You are free to work when/where/how you want.

At some point during the day you will be expected to give a demo (which may be in person or remote). We will try to tell you in advance what time you will be giving demos, but be prepared to give them first thing. We expect you to prepare your demos before class, and to be available for demos all day.

🗂️ Activities

Demo

Demo

Learning Objectives

At CYF we expect you to demo your work to the class. You must have many opportunities to practice how to clearly and simply explain your work to others. This is really important for interviews and career success.

Structure

1. Demo

You will demo something about your project work this sprint to the group.

You will have 2 minutes to explain what you did and why. You must use at least 90 seconds of these 2 minutes. Your demo will be assessed according to the rubric below.

Make sure you are comfortable with the tools you use to present your work. If you are giving a demo in-person you will connect your laptop to a screen/projector and present to the room. If you are giving a demo online you will share your screen on the call.

2. Feedback

After the demo, the group will give you feedback for up to 5 minutes. It’s smart to suggest what kind of feedback you want by asking some “generative” questions. For example:

  • I wasn’t sure if it makes sense to try X. What do you think?
  • I liked the way I did X, but I know there are other approaches, what did you do?
  • I found X really confusing, did anyone else have the same problem?

3. Assessment

The person running the session (either a member of staff or a volunteer) will assess your demo against the rubric below, give you feedback and let you know your score. You need to score at least 5 out of 6 to pass the demo, and you must pass at least 1 demo across the Checkpoint.

💡 Tips:

  • Practice the format of demos before class.
  • Keep it simple. Don’t try to show everything you did. Just show one interesting thing.
  • Keep it short. Two minutes is enough.
  • Explain what you did and why.
  • Show your code.
  • Ask for feedback.

Rubric

These are some criteria we will be using to assess your demo. You must meet at least 5 of the 6 criteria, and we recommend aiming to meet all of them. This is not an ordered list - you can complete these criteria in any order.

Clearly introduce the topic of the demo.
Someone watching should be able to state the topic of the demo in one sentence. This topic should match how the trainee introduced their demo.

If a trainee said their demo was about writing clear code, but it was actually about how to debug a test failure, they missed this.

The topic must not be "I will tell you about my project". It must be more specific than a project overview.
Explain what was done
Someone watching should be able to state what you have done in one sentence.
Explain the reasoning behind a choice.
Someone watching should be able to explain why you did at least one thing a particular way (and why it was a better choice than alternatives).
Show relevant code or artifacts (e.g. a website, a ticket, an discussion).
Someone watching should be able to identify at least one artifact of your work. Slides don't count as an artifact. Make sure any code / text is readable when presenting.
Stick to your time limit.
Your demo must be 90-120 seconds long. You will be given a warning at 90 seconds. If a trainee finished before 90 seconds, they missed this point.

If a trainee is not done speaking at the time limit, they missed this rubric point, and anything they said afterwards will not be counted towards the rubric.
Ask engaging questions.
Someone watching can state at least one question that was asked of the audience that is not "any questions?". The point of this is to engage the audience and get them thinking/caring about the demo. The question should be rhetorical - you don't have time to wait for answers.

Example topics

Below are some examples of topics you could give a demo on. You aren’t limited to things on this list, if you have another idea then you can give your demo on that!

  • One feature of your project
  • A bug you encountered
  • A way in which you refactored some code
  • A new concept you learned about
  • How you tested your code
  • Planning your project
  • The project management tools you used
  • Managing your Git workflow
  • A challenge you encountered during the project
  • How you incorporated feedback from a previous project into this one
Solo project

Solo Project

This sprint you will be working on a solo project. You will need to deliver an entire project, working on your own without a team.

You can choose any one of these listed projects:

Optional: Socialise!

Learning Objectives

At CYF we learn as a community. You’re going to be spending the coming months with the people around you. After that, they will form part of your professional network too.

We encourage you to spend time getting to know them! This is optional. But after class, we encourage you to do something like:

  • Hang around in the class space chatting or playing games.
  • Go sit in a nearby park together.
  • Go to a local cafe for hot drinks.
  • Go to a nearby pub.
  • Or any other ideas you have!

Make sure everyone who wants to join in will feel welcome wherever you go (e.g. a lot of people don’t like drinking or being near alcohol).

If CYF is paying childcare expenses so that you can come to class, we’re happy to pay for this time as well.