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Week 7: Data, API's & Connectivity

Oct 4

This week we will be looking at how Application Programming Interfaces aka APIs work.

We will be talking about how APIs work and how you can begin building your own APIs to consume with a client side web page. We will look at how to structure data using JSON and how GET and POST requests work to get data from an API endpoint and send data to an API endpoint. Finally, we will discuss possible project directions for using APIs in interesting ways.

The majority of resources mentioned can be found in the left sidebar under Development/APIs and in the slides for this week.

Assignment 5: API Project

Objective: Make something using one or more APIs. Here are a few ideas of ways to engage with the topic.

Idea 1:
Continue working on your Student Directory project using data provided by the API I built and showed in class.
Skills: HTML, CSS, JS, front-end framework docs

Idea 2:
Built your own API and create front-end web page to demonstrate it's use.
Skills: HTML, CSS, JS, front-end framework docs, API building tool, Postman

Idea 3:
Choose an API and learn how to use it. Consume the data by visualizing it with p5.js or creating a front-end web page to demonstrate it’s use.
Skills: HTML, CSS, JS, Postman, API documentation

Idea 4:
API Mashup - Spec out the concept by drawing or sketching it out. Use block diagrams, flow charts, or mind mapping tools to visualize the connections between APIs. Attempt to build something with the APIs involved.
Skills: HTML, CSS, JS, Postman, API documentation, making diagrams. Tip: Explore the resources in API Mashups.

Idea 5:
Develop a tutorial that demonstrates how to work with a specific API. How do you issue GET requests to the available endpoints? What are the basic steps? What tools are involved?
Skills: HTML, CSS, JS, Postman, API documentation, making diagrams, writing instructions

Idea 6:???

Resources

Deliverable:

  1. A short video demonstrating your project. Introduce yourself and project. Provide an overview of what you made and how it works. Embed the video into your blog post.

  2. If necessary, include a link to your Github repo for any code written. Include information about your project in the README.md file in the Github repo.

Submit a link to your blog post on Slack #cmstudio.

Due: Oct 11

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