X-Ray Platoon Final Projects

Representing Code Platoon’s twenty-fourth Full-stack Software Engineering: Immersive cohort, the X-Ray Platoon graduates recently presented their final projects. This time, our graduates applied all of the front-end, back-end, and software project management skills they developed during the program to produce four hands-on capstone projects ranging from an AI-integrated eCommerce site, to an event management platform, and even a mobile game. Join us in this blog as we recognize our graduates’ dedication and celebrate their impressive final projects. 

The first team, Bonsai, developed an ambitious software engineering project including an ecommerce site to buy and sell bonsais, a social platform for the bonsai community to publish and share attributed blog posts, and an AI-powered “Zen Master” chatbot to help users care for their bonsais and even themselves.

“We built our ‘Zen Master’ using Haystack LLM framework pipeline and OpenAI. We used advanced components and imported documents, specific embeddings, and custom prompts,” Dustin, Navy Veteran and X-Ray Platoon graduate, says, “We taught the LLM Bonsai knowledge, Zen, and the real-life history of a legendary samurai to not only provide advice but also to make it respond with the depth and wisdom of a former warrior who has embraced a peaceful path. Zen Master’s unique responses are rooted in history, mindfulness, and tranquility while always bringing the focus back to bonsai.”

Other features implemented by the Bonsai team include mobile optimization and integration with APIs like Google Maps, PayPal, and OpenWeather to improve their users’ experiences while buying, selling, and caring for their bonsais. Check out their final project below!

The next team built Foundations of Programming (FOP), a class management tool for Code Platoon students and instructors. Features of their application include unique student and instructor course creation, question adding, and a Visual Studio Code Integrated Development Environment directly in the application. 

FOP uses React.js, Tailwind CSS, and Daisy UI on the front end. A Django REST framework makes up the back end. Programming languages used include JavaScript, Python, and CSS.

To facilitate a clean code base and prevent merge conflicts during their project, the team built a GitHub repository and internal review system with a feature branch based development cycle: “Whenever someone came up with a new idea, they would create a branch, do their work, then submit it through a pull request,” Navy Veteran and FOP team member Brandon says. “The request would be under review to a minimum of two reviewers before we would merge it to main.”

The Event Master team created a comprehensive full-stack web application for users to discover and organize events. Their users can search for events via keyword and location-based searches. Event organizers can generate links to ticket purchases and venue information directly in the application via the Ticketmaster API. Users can also see all of the events they’re attending and organizing on their user profiles, which are saved to Event Master via a PostgreSQL relational database management system.

All of this was created by a team of three transitioning Active Duty graduates who completed X-Ray Platoon via the SkillBridge program. 

“We had some difficulties managing our small team size, different time zones from Hawaii to EST, and two-week time frame to create Event Master,” Mickey, a transitioning Soldier and X-Ray Platoon graduate, shares. “Organizing our goals and making sure we were on the same page was essential. We took our daily stand-up and stand-down meetings seriously, so we knew our goals and who was working on what parts of the application.”

The last project in our showcase is Deal or Dragon, a mobile game with an AI “battle” system. Users put their creative writing skills to the test by convincing characters powered by the team’s AI assistant to purchase an item in a limited number of turns.

“I trained the AI bosses to adapt to player actions, ensuring that every interaction felt unique and challenging,” Erika, a military spouse, says. “The AI assistant has a data set of example conversations and decision-making scenarios. It includes a variety of player actions like persuasion attempts, logical arguments, or even emotional appeals and the assistant learns how to handle each of them differently.”

“Working on this project was an incredible team experience. Everyone collaborated, not just on isolated components but on every aspect of the game. We had to work very closely to make sure everything fit together smoothly. Every single one of the pages and parts of the databases has code from every member of the team. It brought its challenges but also enriched the project.”