Welcome back to another sprint reflection!
This two-week period has been our most technically challenging yet, transitioning us from a planning mindset to an implementation one. The pressure is on, and it sure is full steam ahead!
We successfully implemented three games from the hackathon, along with the Choose Your Own Adventure game, into our codebase. This was a significant advancement, as these are what we wanted for our MVP. It felt like we were behind two weeks ago, but through focusing and better team communication, we made significant progress on our core features this sprint. We also integrated a Moon Calendar, showcasing the 13 different moons of the W̱SÁNEĆ peoples. One challenge we found with the Moon Calendar was balancing the cultural authenticity of those who curated specific wording for each moon description with the need for age-appropriateness and engagement for middle schoolers. We worked closely with cultural sensitivity in mind, aiming not to paraphrase too much, to ensure the Moon Calendar remained respectful and accurate while still being engaging for students.
That being said, we had to make some adjustments to our goals and plans from the last sprint. We dropped the Home Room Visits goal when Vice President Kim became unavailable, which taught us the important lesson we have become familiar with: “relinquishing control.” There are many stakeholders in our project, and things will not always align with our intended timeline. We took this extra time given and used it to focus more on other tasks at hand.
On a brighter note, we have significantly streamlined our time management and team collaboration this past sprint. Everyone is always up to date on the task at hand, which has helped us stay more connected, even with some remote team members.
We have also been thinking about code reviews because Reed’s presentation on that topic helped us realize their importance and how they could help alleviate the stresses we have encountered in the past regarding code that is hard to read. Alongside this, the login and authentication system has had significant advances. We have VPN access set up and test accounts configured with API keys. However, integration work will continue through the end of October, with a full deployment of the live website planned for the end of October.
We are thinking of ways to establish assessment criteria to showcase Bridging Roots’ impact. Since the class is graded only on engagement, we cannot use traditional tests. We are planning to use a combination of teacher observations and student engagement metrics, with criteria established by October 29th.
We have built contingencies into every phase of our timeline until the end of the project, including backup dates for school visits, alternative data collection methods, and a two-week contingency plan before our final presentation. We have tested our games locally, but deployment on the school district’s server may reveal new challenges.
As we head into deployment week in early November, we are feeling optimistic about everything. The next sprint will focus on listening to student feedback and iterating quickly to stay on schedule. We are entering the most critical phase in our project, with limited time to measure meaningful impact. Thus, our measurement metrics may change as we go, but that is all a part of the process.
The real work has just begun!