Todo tutorials can be fun — but here’s how to build your own projects from scratch

A goal in this sense is basically what you want to achieve with your project.

Instead of simply aiming to build a GitHub dashboard you could say:“I am going to build a dashboard that shows how many commits I’ve made to my own repositories last month.

”This gives you a clear direction in which to work.

Once you have reached that goal, you could add more features, or move onto another project.

A goal can be anything you want:“I want to learn how to write clean code”“I want to learn CSS Grid”“I want to be able to call an API using React”“I want to learn how to write tests in Python”BONUS TIP — remember to put everything onto your own GitHub repository, and state the goal in the description (you should put projects on your CV/Resume as well!).

This will show employers that you are passionate about learning, and will also be good motivation for yourself when you look back on old projects!Example projects to tryHere’s some example projects to get your creative flow going.

(Quick note: I will be creating these projects myself, along with articles on how I did each one, how/why I made the decisions I made, and my general thought process.

As well as completed code, of course.

Make sure to subscribe to my blog to get updated when these articles are available!)Calculator web appCreate a calculator that allows the user to perform basic operations: Add, subtract, multiply & divide.

When you have got that far, you can build upon it:Add more scientific calculations (modulus etc)Improve the UI (HINT: CSS Grid will be your friend here)Create “undo” functionality (HINT: the react tutorial has a good example of this)GitHub dashboardUse the GitHub API to create your own dashboard.

This dashboard can be anything you want.

A possible starting point would be to display information about your own GitHub account.

Total commits over the past monthTotal number of repositoriesDisplays your most used/favourite languageHINT: Even though this is a client-side project, you will have to interact with an API.

Use Postman or similar to get a feel for how the API works, how to authenticate requests and things like that.

A Quiz appCreate a quiz app that randomly displays a question with a multiple choice of answers to the user.

If the user gets the answer correct, display a “hurray!” message, update their score, you get the idea.

I like this app as the possibilities are endless when it comes to expanding on it:Add categoriesAdd high scoresAdd a countdownAllow multiple players (HINT: You could go really advanced and use Socket.

io to allow online play!)HINT: Remember not to go overboard at the beginning!.Set your goal for the initial project, and get to that point first.

Then, see if you want to add more stuff or move onto something else.

A Real Time weather appUse something like Open Weather Map to create an app that displays the latest weather for a certain location in real time.

HINT: Try not to be put off by the term real-time.

At its simplest level, this could be writing some logic that calls the api every 5 seconds and displays the data.

We all know how shopping carts work, but can you build one?.Display a list of products to the user, and let them add it to their cart.

As a starting point, you could create functionality that:Let’s the user add an item from the product page to their cartShows the items in the cartShow’s the total cost of the items in the cartHINT — You can simply hardcode the products that appear on the product’s page as a first step to get going.

More projects!If you’re looking to get your hands on more projects, check out this GitHub repo .

There are projects for different levels that will keep you busy for a while!Thanks for reading!To get the latest guides, tips, and courses for junior developers straight to your inbox (as well as some exclusive stuff!), make sure to join the mailing list at www.

chrisblakely.

dev!Originally published at www.

chrisblakely.

dev on April 7, 2019.

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