Wizard Level I Capstone

In this lesson, students learn what makes this Capstone course different from other courses they’ve taken so far at CodeWizardsHQ. The purpose of this Capstone course is to ensure students can apply everything they’ve learned in a real-world setting. They hit the ground running by beginning the first of three projects: coding a website using HTML and CSS while using a provided design document.

This lesson begins with a student-led discussion around their approaches to implementing the “Home” and “About” pages of the website they worked on in the previous class. The students collaborate to finish those two web pages while the instructor guides them through any roadblocks. To end the lesson, students add three additional pages to their website and spend some time testing and debugging each other’s work. 

In this lesson, students continue working from the design documents to create a functional navigation menu for their website. Once they have their navigation menu working, they’ll spend the remainder of the class polishing the site’s pages to look more professional. At this point, they are nearly finished with the first capstone project!

In this lesson, students put the finishing touches on their websites. Their assignment is to create a contact form from minimal code examples and a design document. This lesson marks the end of the first project. Students will have built their first site working from a sample design, a valuable skill at the core of professional web development.

In this lesson, students begin a new project that spans over four classes. Their assignment is to create a tic-tac-toe game with a simple AI opponent using Python. Using Python’s list data structure, they’ll create a data model of the tic-tac-toe board. Once they’ve successfully modeled the tic-tac-toe board, they’ll use a proprietary CodeWizardsHQ library to add a graphics component to their game and make it more engaging to play. 

In this lesson, students continue developing the Python-based tic-tac-toe game started in Lesson 5. This lesson focuses on refactoring the program to follow the D.R.Y (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle by reducing multiple loops to a single set of nested loops. The students also begin making the game interactive by allowing users to input their choices when playing the game. 

In this lesson, students implement the game loop that allows players to mark their moves on the tic-tac-toe board. They also practice validating user input by giving feedback to the user for invalid moves. Validating user input and providing helpful messages for invalid data is essential for creating robust software. 

In this lesson, students complete the Python-based tic-tac-toe game they started in lesson five by filling in the missing game logic. They begin by limiting the player’s moves to empty squares. Next, the students program a computer opponent to play against the human player. Finally, they add logic to detect the winner of the game.

In this lesson, students start the third and final project of the course. They practice their HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery skills for the four remaining lessons to master what they have learned throughout this Wizard Level. Students focus on HTML and CSS to build the homepage for a series of games that they will create in the following classes. They also make a basic outline for the game pages, which they’ll polish in the upcoming lessons.

In this lesson, students create their first game, a reflex test that uses JavaScript timing utilities to accurately measure the time from when a square changes color to when the player clicks on it. The app then computes the player’s reaction time to the millisecond and displays it to the user. While building this app, students will practice fundamental JavaScript concepts like timers, randomness, and performing basic arithmetic.

In this class, students create another game to add to the “Game Gallery” project they are developing. This game is a memory test: in each round, a random number of a fixed length is displayed for only three seconds. If the player remembers correctly, another digit is added to the next round’s number. The students craft the visual elements with HTML and use JavaScript with jQuery to implement the game logic.

The students use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery to create a word-guessing game in this class. Their “Top-Games” website now has three games, an impressive beginning to a developer portfolio! This word-guessing game works by displaying a series of blank squares representing letters of a random word the user should guess. If the user guesses correctly, the letter is revealed on the screen.