Choosing a Project
Your first AI-built project should be ambitious enough to learn from, but simple enough to complete.
Good First Projects
✓Tip
Start with something you'd actually use. Personal motivation helps you push through challenges!
🌟 Recommended: Personal Dashboard
> Build a personal dashboard that shows:
> - Weather for my location (Sydney)
> - Today's tasks from a todo list
> - Motivational quote of the day
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Why it's great:
- Multiple components to build
- API integrations
- localStorage for persistence
- Useful daily!
Other Good Options
| Project | Skills Learned |
|---|
| Landing page | HTML/CSS, responsive design |
| Todo app | CRUD operations, state management |
| Recipe book | Data modeling, search/filter |
| Budget tracker | Forms, calculations, charts |
| Portfolio site | Multi-page, deployment |
Projects to Avoid (For Now)
⚠Warning
These are too complex for a first project:
- Full e-commerce store
- Social media app
- Real-time chat
- Authentication systems
- Payment integrations
Save these for your second or third project!
Defining Your Project
Be specific about what you want:
❌ Too vague:
✅ Good:
> Build a budget tracker web app where I can:
> - Add income and expenses in AUD
> - Categorize transactions
> - See a monthly summary chart
> - Data persists in localStorage
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🇦🇺Aussie Note
Think about a small problem in your life. Something that takes 5 minutes but could be automated. That's your first project! 🎯
Our Project: Aussie Coffee Finder
For this module, we'll build together:
Aussie Coffee Finder - A web app to find and rate local coffee shops.
Features:
- Add coffee shops with name, location, rating
- Filter by suburb
- Save favorites
- Australian address format
$ mkdir aussie-coffee-finder
$ cd aussie-coffee-finder
$ git init
$ touch CLAUDE.md README.md
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Key Takeaways
- Pick something personally useful
- Start simple, expand later
- Be specific in your requirements
- Avoid auth/payments for first project
- Document your idea before building