6-Inspiring-Projects-From-the-Codecademy-Community

6 Inspiring Projects From the Codecademy Community

01/03/2022

The New Year marks a time for celebration and reflection, but it also opens the door for new goals and ambitions. If you’re considering learning how to code, now’s the time. Or, if you’re already well on your way to a new career in development, here’s your chance to kick things up a notch.

It’s incredible how much you can achieve in a year. Twelve months from now, you can be in an entirely different place — with skills and knowledge you’re only just starting to recognize. Our community illustrates this every day, and they’re a great source of inspiration.

So, to help show you how much you can achieve in 2022, we’ve surfaced some of the coolest projects shared by our learners over the past year.

1. RuneScape 2021 Christmas Event tracker

Andrew, a learner from Scotland, joined Codecademy in late November. Since then, he’s already made headway in the Data Analyst Career Path and learned enough Python to build a program that calculates how many in-game rewards you can earn in a given time frame. As he explains:

“I am new to coding, and I am only around 5% of the way through the Data Analyst Career Path, which includes an introduction to Python 3. This is all the coding I know, and I have attempted to utilize what I have learned over the prior 2 weeks. The program is based on the online MMORPG RuneScape and the Christmas 2021 event. I gathered my own data on Christmas Paper earned per hour and used that as the basis for this program.”

Andrew’s project illustrates another great thing about our community — they’re always willing to help! After sharing his project in our forum, Andrew received some tips on how to improve his code, use of functions, and parameters.

2. Text-based adventure RPG

For those of us who were around for the text-based role-playing video game (RPG) craze of the early ’90s, Filippo, another one of our learners, offers a fun dose of nostalgia:

“It basically is a very simple RPG heavily focused on combat. The hero is able to face off with different monsters, collect potions, pieces of armor, and weapons, and move around different locations.”

Like Andrew, Filippo built their project with Python — and if you’re ready to play, you can find the game on GitHub. (Tip: Defeat 10 enemies to unlock a hidden boss!)

3. Blackjack

Keeping with the running theme, Robert offers a classic game: blackjack. But this one comes with a twist!

“I read that Blackjack at casinos uses upwards of 6 decks! This is the bulk of the problem I made for myself. If I had just used 1 deck, I could have made it work, but I’m stubborn and wanted to make it as much like the real thing as I could.”

In our forum, Robert breaks down (in great detail) how he built his project step-by-step. He even outlines how he avoided using the same card twice in a hand, assigned the different cards’ values, and addressed other problem points.

Ready to play a hand? You can find Robert’s project on GitHub. Just copy the code, paste it into a new workspace, and hit “Save + Run.”

4. Band name generator

You don’t always have to code on your own. Collaborative projects are a great way to learn from other developers, and they’ll also help you build skills you’ll use throughout your career.

Julia gives us a perfect example of how two (or more) minds are better than one with a project she built with other members of Codecademy’s Chapter in Detroit.

“I got some help from some developer friends, but I have been slowly poking at this React app project to generate random band names. I came up with the idea after I read that one of my favorite bands, Tokyo Police Club, got their name from a site like this.”

Julia’s team built their project in VS Code, and they used CSS code snippets to give it some style. The project is hosted on GitHub Pages, and for a step-by-step walkthrough of how they created it, watch the video below.

5. Danceability chart

Tired of your Spotify playlists and looking for some new songs to dance to? Put some pep in your step with Sebastian’s project.

“It generates a bar graph of different nations ‘danceability’, based on this week’s Top Songs in Spotify. I thought it was cool seeing a little insight into the differences between the measure amongst the countries I selected.”

Sebastian pulled the data for his project using Spotify’s API, and it’s a great example of the many different things you can do with data.

6. Covid tracker

Using data visualization tools like Python, pandas, Matplotlib, and seaborn, Scott developed a geographic heat map illustrating fluctuations in Covid cases from June 2020 to October 2021. To see Scott’s project in action, check it out on YouTube. As he explains:

“For this project, I cleaned the data from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment to normalize daily positive COVID-19 cases by county. These normalized values were used to create a GeoPandas heat map for each day’s case numbers.”

Scott’s project takes a page from experts around the world, as data science has played a strong role in the fight against the pandemic. If you want to learn how to dive into data yourself, check out our Data Scientist Career Path.

The nifty projects listed above are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the things you can do with code. Plus, projects play a crucial role in your development as you build your skills. Visit our project library for ideas, or, if you need a little guidance, explore the articles below:


Code Foundations Courses & Tutorials | Codecademy
Interested in learning how to code, but unsure where to start? Our Code Foundations domain provides an overview of the main applications of programming and teaches important concepts that you’ll find in every programming language. This content will prepare you to chart a course to a more technical c…

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