Here's week three. Enjoy!
Building 'somethin small'
This week we were given the freedom to build our own project - a 1 week long hackathon.
On monday Andrew told us 'think of a project that you think you can do in a week, keep it fun, demos are Saturday' and I knew what I wanted to build. It was a mobile app for recipe generation. I spent all of Monday on that. End of Monday, Paris came by and told me we are doing a mobile chapter later on so it might be best to continue making that project just as a webapp. I entertained that idea, started mapping out components on the page. But, in my mind it was hard to accept this. This is a project that has been in my mind for a long time now. I had to make it mobile.
Come Tuesday, I tinkered around a old idea that I hadn't explored yet - InstaChat. an LLM that allows you to retrieve saved instagram posts based on what you're looking for. However, a few hours in and I find out that Instagram doesn't have an API to access saved posts.
Shit. Should've explored their API before I started building.Tuesday night I went home, started brainstorming with a friend, and an idea immediately struck me. I had to try for it.
Lo and behold, Watashi, inspired by one of my favorite apps - Co-Star. It's an LLM "service" that allows you to speak with your planets from your birthchart, each with their own personality based on your sign for that planet. In a way, it's like therapy when you speak with your planets - maybe they become your besties over time, maybe you grow to have a favorite and ... a not so favorite.
Now, in theory, even if I broke down the production steps, my naive self was like - how hard can it be? People build LLMs all the time.
"Build the UI, grab location data from the birth data form, calculate birth chart (I'm sure there are ways to do this with the rise of astrology), and give each planet's chat a personality. Sure it sounds tough, but not impossible?"
It was toouuuggghh. And I definitely bit off more than I could chew. In 4 days, I had to build a functional front-end, routing system, and trained LLMs. While I wish I had defined the scope of the project to be more manageable before-hand, I don't really regret stumbling across this idea.
Often times, especially as beginners in tech, we don't realize how important it is to properly scope out a project. We don't anticipate nitty gritty, the errors, the simple but difficult tasks to build.
I found this week to be fun, but quite overwhelming. There are so many things I wish I just knew how to do.
I wish I knew how to grab the latitude and longitude from a location input using Google Maps API. I wish I knew how to create a simple form. I wish I knew how to make an LLM talk back to you. I wish I knew how to pass the data locally between pages. I wish deploying wasn't as tough as it was.
I wish I wish etc. But the beauty of it is that I now know. I tried, it got messy, and I kinda failed kinda didn't? But I've come out so of this experience knowing that being an engineer doesn't mean you just make something that works on your end and think it'll work everywhere. It's insane the amount of detail and factors you have to consider before actually shipping a product for the world to see. While there are 10+ million engineers in this world, and for many it can seem like there are way too many of us in the world, I now realize that there's a reason why engineering is in demand.
In one way or another, in any form of engineering, you are building products that the current and hopefully future generation can enjoy. You are pushing humanity's technological advancement towards a better world. While engineerning may look different decade to decade, I believe it may morphe but never truly die.
Today, whether it's a super cool personal project or a world advancement product, engineers around the world ship one thing or another every day. It's exciting to be a part of this community that fosters any future oriented brain.
Friday night was my first all nighter of this program. While it might not have been necessary, it was for me. I didn't necessarily do it because I "had to" submit a working project. I just really really reallyyy wanted to show my vision. I wanted people to understand that what I was building could be meaningful. I wanted to prove that maybe I'm late to the party, but I'm here to grow and learn. And honestly, the fact that my drive has changed from "I think my idea is too hard" to "No but I NEED to try." when it comes to a personal projects is speaking volumes to me.
If you're reading this, and you're considering joining Fractal's bootcamp and feeling intimidated by students pulling off all nighters, don't be. Rest is always a priority here and it will almost never trump your bootcamp goals. Understand that goals differ student to student. And for some students, the on-paper goals and the goals in their hearts are two different things. In most cases, you will not be in a position do so. But, do understand you are signing up to commit to working hard. That may look different for everyone.
For me, if you asked me 3 weeks ago to build this LLM project in 4 days, I would've looked straight at you and laughed - "you're joking right". It's insane how much progress we all have made here. In just THREE WEEKS.
The pandora's box is open and you wonder how so many things in this world were built and how much you know and don't know. The learning curve is expected but hits you in the face everytime you realize there's more you don't know. The more I learn, the more I implement in projects, the more I'm like "jesus there's so much more I don't know".
Emotionally, the past two weeks have been rough. It's hard not to beat yourself up over not knowing things and just kind of go in your shell and fall victim to imposter syndrome. It's hard to just take it day by day and give yourself brace. The saying here at Fractal is that "It should feel like you're building muscle, not like breaking bones". And it feels exactly how it does the next day after an intense gym session, only it's your mind, and it's everyday. And guess what! Your mind also has many chemicals that make up your feelings! So sure your feelings also get sore, but at the end of the day, it's extremely rewarding to be here and put in the work.
The human mind is truly a muscle that just needs training.