My Web3 _BuildSpace weekend 🦄

My Web3 _BuildSpace weekend 🦄

Dipping my toes into web3 development!

·

8 min read

Overview 🦄

Today’s post will involve my reflecting on my experience building some ethereum and Solana projects on Buildspace ! I know a lot of people are in a similar position to me and are finding ways to pivot into web3, and buildspace has been a great help to many people so I am documenting my experience to help others too! It will focus less on what I built, but more on how the Buildspace works!🚀

But… Here is what I did build

I spent this weekend building the following buildspace projects:

  • Build a web3 app with solidity + ethereum smart contracts
  • Mint your own NFT collection & ship a web3 app to show them off
  • Build a web3 app on Solana with React and Rust
  • Create your own mini-turn based NFT game (To be completed this week!)

Screenshot 2021-11-22 at 11.30.33.png

Pre-requisites (Optional)

I have very little experience with coding but I followed the recommendations of the buildspace team to complete the following courses so that I would be prepared for the buildspace projects📚.

scrimba.png

The Scrimba and Cryptozombies🧟 courses were invaluable and helped me so much to grasp a greater understanding of what was happening during the courses. Especially for someone who has little experience in programming, it taught me so much more than I expected in an amazing way. I have tried to learn programming before using resources like CodeAcademy and such, but I never really enjoyed the learning experience. Scrimba changed that. If you don’t know how Scrimba works, I recommend that you go check it out just to see the power behind it! 🔌

powere.gif

I am signing up for a Pro membership to take their Frontend Developer Career Path course once I’ve completed the final buildspace project and taken a small break. 🏖️

CryptoZombies🧟 covers a good portion of solidity simply. Solidity coding differs quite a lot from the standard web2 coding languages, so the lessons were invaluable in my web3 education because I would have had no idea if I had just jumped into the buildspace projects.

czombie.png

I don’t want to spend too much time on the prerequisites, but if you lack coding skills, I recommend taking these courses before jumping into buildspace❗ It is possible to start the buildspace projects without it, but I can’t imagine the experience as valuable because you might not understand what is happening. Instead, you might just blindly copy and paste, which is not the same as coding yourself.

copyin.gif

Kick-Off ⚽

I am based in the GMT timezone, so the kick-off was later in the afternoon, around 5 pm, so I opted to skip the live kick-off session. The kick-off session is the only live aspect of this project, but it is also recorded so that you can watch it later📺 . The recorded session is usually released within 2 hours after the live session, so I just watched it during my break!🍜

The project material does unlock 2 hours before the stated time, though, so I started my first project (NFT collection🚀) at 3:30 pm once I realised I could build earlier, and I thought the extra time would have been helpful for myself :).

spaceship.gif

Initially, I preferred doing the web3 app project, but that started at 8 pm, so I opted to start with the NFT collection🚀 since it was already released. By the time I was halfway through the project, that feeling had melted away and instead, I was in awe of how I submitted my contract to the blockchain network!🤩 In saying this, if future cohorts are released similarly to mine, where the NFT project is first, by all means, definitely give it a go because I was so glad that I started with that one!

Straight away, you can see the informal manner in which the project is written, but don’t let that fool you, as the quality is sky-high! I love the everyday language used as it reminds you that behind every computer is a person and that the buildspace group are a bunch of humans trying to help us pivot into web3. We are all degens at heart 💖

Project Content 📚

All of the content within buildspace is explained in great detail that every line of code you add has a reason for why it is there, sometimes along with a link for further information📚! It couldn’t have been simpler! That’s why it is possible to skip the prerequisites and complete most of the project, but you will be googling a few things, especially if you have no experience with React.

One of the critical aspects of Buildspace is the discord community👪, especially during the initial kick-offs and the following few days. The discord server is very active for each project, and you will be able to get a lot of support from your peers or help them! I would filter through the messages as many of my questions were answered by searching through the filter. It saved me a lot of time!⏳

ohana.gif

Another critical aspect about Buildspace is that there are many optional add-on scenarios described within each project. For example, the NFT collection project involved the following optional tasks:

  • Create a loading bar whilst the mint is buffering ✨
  • A score for mints/total mints ✨
  • Clean up the UI✨

Along with many other tasks… Each of these optional tasks is a great way to showcase your skills✨; even if you aren’t entirely confident, it is worth trying. I couldn’t complete half of the optional add-ons, but I attempted them and still learnt a lot whilst trying them.

I decided to document a few notes about specific solidity code that I found interesting throughout the project. I would try to explain it to myself in the simplest way possible to teach a 5-year-old. It is a great way to learn actively, and it reinforced the ideas within my head instead of speeding through the course.🧠

Buildspace mentions that each project will take around 5-10 hours to complete, dependent on your knowledge and skill. This was roughly accurate for me, as I took about 6 hours for the NFT collection, then a few hours for the web3 app because I already understood a lot of the content from the NFT collection, but these times also included breaks! The Solana course took me longer than the other two because I kept having more breaks, and I was getting a bit burnt-out, so I took a break and headed out for the games night with my friends.🕹️

gamenight.gif

I let the Solana project roll over to Monday and Tuesday because I had already absorbed a lot of content from the previous two projects, and I didn’t want to overwork myself. Burn-out🔥 is real bois n gorls, remember to take a break from the computer and get some fresh air⛰️! These projects aren’t going anywhere, and it is much more important to care for your health. That is the medic in me coming out, haha, but swiftly moving on….

NFT & Alumni opportunities ✨

Receiving the NFT is a very fulfilling experience. Oh wait, did I not mention that you receive an NFT too when you complete their course? Based on your cohort, you will receive an NFT with your cohort name and a # number showing how fast you completed it. Here is a little peek of mine below :).

NFT collection.png

These NFTs can be used as an online credential to display your web3 skills, which seems to be a key trend in the past couple of months, especially with other web3 protocols such as Rabbithole.gg. Not only are the NFTs cool af, but they also act as a resume and could be your bridge to web3 development! They are non-transferable and live on the blockchain, so a screenshot means nothing. Screenshot it, I dare you. 😈

go ahread.gif

This is one of the many perks of NFTs, so now employers will be able to recognise if something is real or not! They also grant you access to the #alumni section within the Buildspace server, which is an excellent way to network with other people, and it is something I am going to (try) and keep an eye on. There are too many projects and servers to keep updated within web3; that’s why I put “(try)”.

Reflection

This was a fantastic experience and has only fueled my love for web3! A big thank you to Buildspace for their top-tier projects❤️. I recommend these projects to anyone who wants to dip their toes into the water of being a web3 developer or a developer newbie like me and wants to understand how web3 development works.

It also felt surreal to even build on a testnet, I can’t imagine the feeling when I will eventually deploy a project to the mainnet, but it is also a day I can not wait for! I was a bit time-constrained this time around, but I will return to these courses in the future once I have further developed my coding skills.💻

For now, I will aim to complete the NFT Game project🎮, but then I will probably move back to scrimba to build my foundation of coding skills. As much as I can’t wait to dive into web3, I want to build a good foundation before diving further into solidity.