ClackChat is a keyboard hobbiest hub with a goal of bring people together to share their experiences and expertise. As a newcomer to the mechanical keyboard community, I found that finding information in one place was very difficult, and this app is an effort to bring mulitple resources to one consolidated site. Included on the site are videos on how to, product reviews, typing sound tests, words per minute games, and articles related to the hobby. Users can use the chat room to ask questions and see other people's posts as well as find valuble resources for the own upcoming projects.
What do mechanical keyboards have to do with coding?
You might ask, what do mechanical keyboards have to do with coding? It turns out, you have to become familliar with JSON objects to program the firmware that runs the keyboard itself! Most custom keybaords have open source firmware, and do not work "out of the box." My experience of learning how to create a virtual environment, editing config files, make .bin / .json files, was very challenging as a newcomer to programing. I was very fortunate to find several community members that helped me set up VS CODE, python virtual environments, and understand how to flash firmware onto devices. This experience is what drove me to explore programing further and sign up for Coding Dojo, and I wanted my first project to reflect this.
Technologies Used:
- Languaes: Python, HTML, CSS
- Framework: Django
- Database:SQLite
Project Objectives:
- Learn HTML, Django, and CSS basics
- Impliment log in and registration with password encryption
- Impliment log in and registration with password encryption
- Explore front end stlying and CSS properties
- Media file upload and storage
Project Presentation
As part of the Coding Dojo experience, students were encouraged to present their project to fellow alumni. I really getting people excited about the things I am passionate about, and this was a great opportunity to do so. With roughly 70 people in the audience, I brought in actual mechanical keyboards and passed them around for people to use and play with as I presented my website. I wanted people to see why they might want to get into the hobby, and showcase "products" that they could see themselves using. To this day, I keep in touch with several Coding Dojo alumni that have questions about mechanical keyboard products and software.
Experience Summary
ClackChat was my very first coding project as an alumni at Coding Dojo, which is a 14 week intensive coding bootcamp. After only 3 weeks of experience, I was able to create a website that included a front end / back end validations, log 'n reg, and password encryption. At the time, I had some limitations to the funcitonality of the site, and because we only had 1 week to complete the project, I had to move on without fully implimenting some of the features I had originally invisioned for ClackChat.
Things I would have liked to improved are: making the site responvie, mobile friendly, light mode dark mode options, include typing sound when typing in message board, custom text colors to reflect actual keycap sets in community, and add a user profile page.
Project Video Demo: