A couple months ago, we featured Lighthouse Labs, Toronto’s newest coding bootcamp. We learned how they’ve set themselves apart in Toronto by focusing on the careers of their graduates. Then, we heard from graduates of their Vancouver campus.
Now, it’s Demo Day time. Lighthouse Labs’ first-ever Toronto cohort is about to graduate, and they are ready to show off what they can create after 8 weeks. This is one of the secrets to the school’s 100% placement rate; employers can see exactly what students are capable of. By looking at their final projects, a savvy employer can tell the students’ technical proficiency, design capability, and project management skills. These are things you can’t always tell from traditional resumes or job interviews.
Demo Day isn’t just for employers, however. The students are mostly career changers, coming from all sorts of backgrounds, age groups and with a variety of goals and ambitions. The event has been structured to reflect these differences; it’s more like an unconference than a ceremony. Students present their projects, but there are also tables where students break down their code science-fair-style, an open-area space, and free beer.
In Toronto’s tech industry, you’re only as good as the things you can build. Demo Day is all about the final projects, so we went directly to Lighthouse Labs’ students and asked them: “What are you building after 8 weeks of learning to code?”. Their answers were impressive:
Project 1: NWMP: Not Windows Media Player
Students:
Bruno Opsenica, former MCAT Physics instructor
Andrew Heppner, former Audio Engineer
Cody Brouwers, former Account Manager
“We are creating a website that allows you to create music “videos” using a suite 3D of music visualization tools. We’ve built it using React, WebGL, and SQL.”
Project 2: pewpewpew.js
Students:
Scott Woodend, recent BA grad from Wilfrid Laurier University
Vinny Nguyen, current Math major at U of T
“We are working on a research project in JavaScript/Node.js that uses machine learning to create an artificial intelligence to play a classic video game: Asteroids. It’s an experiment in seeing if we can use machine learning to have the AI beat a random, human-controlled player.”
Project 3: Fare
Students:
SooJeen Park, former accountant
“I want to create a system for rating individual dishes on a restaurant’s menu, the same way we have things like Yelp for rating entire restaurants. I’m building it with JavaScript/Node.js/Postgres.”
Project 4: LMS Canvas Drawing Tool
Students:
Sana Zareey, Vice-Principal at a private high school
“I’m using Rails, SQL, and Node to build a framework for a Learning Management System that allows questions for students to answer using freehand drawing via tablet (i.e iPad). My goal is eventually to start an online school, and integrates technologies like this into it.”
So there you have it: everything for a self-playing video game to mini online school. We’ll be attending Demo Day on July 2nd see it in action. You can register free(including food and drinks) for the big event here!
Interested in learning more about Lighthouse Labs? Check out their website.
