CodeCoach for First Code Academy E-learning platform

CodeCoach is an e-learning platform that offers personal coding lessons for kids. It connects students with certified computer science tutors, and lets children learn to program anytime and anywhere.

A strictly defined delivery date for online courses
A high-level of customer engagement and positive user-experience
Initial request with uncertainties about course features
Seamlessly works in browsers popular in the Hong Kong region

Story Behind

Since it was founded in 2013, First Code Academy has provided coding classes across Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. First Code Academy partnered with multinational corporations such as Google, and their work has been featured on Forbes, Wall Street Journal, and other big media outlets.

Michelle Sun, the CEO and co-founder of First Code Academy, has achieved a number of international accolades for her exceptional work, including the Forbes 30 under 30 in Asia (2016) and the BBC 30 Under 30 Women Entrepreneurs (2015).

For developing CodeCoach, Michelle appointed Anadea after a competitive process, and we were pleased to start our collaboration. The initial project aim was to develop the system from the ground-up for children that could take accelerated programming courses in the upcoming Summer camp season.

Team Effort

An e-learning platform was delivered within the allocated time and budget, thanks to the team’s technical efficiency along with the proactive participation of the First Code Academy team.

This collaboration along with fine-tuned teamwork allowed us to solve challenges quickly, balance priorities flexibly, ensure the project was completed quickly as per the client’s goals, and to ensure it was launched in time for the busy Summer camp season.

Main Features

Shared code editor

Code editor for Python allows Tutor and Student to write code simultaneously, in real-time.

Chat & Video

Online video conferences and chat works in different browsers including those that are popular in the Hong Kong region.

Screen sharing

The screen sharing feature is working seamlessly in browsers popular in the Hong Kong region, such as QQ and 360 browser.

Admin dashboard

A handy tool for managing classrooms, students, and tutors.
Python executor

The executed code is managed from the front-end using web-sockets.
For security and stability reasons the code is executed in a separate Docker container.

Challenges

At the start the project team faced the following challenges: a strictly defined release deadline and some level of uncertainties about features for the first release. The business analyst took a deep dive into the project details, helped to form the system’s vision, defined requirements, prioritized features for the releases, and created the document outlining the scope of work. With the agile approach, the development team overcame difficulties with the project moving forward and adjusting to changes at the customer’s vision of some application features.

Thanks to close cooperation with the customer, some features were changed, some were added, and some pushed to the second development phase. To demonstrate the progress and gather the feedback, the team performed weekly demos. The challenge the team faced was to enable screen sharing in different browsers including those that are popular in the Hong Kong region, such as the QQ browser and 360 browser.

The thing is that each browser has different requirements to implement the screen sharing feature. For example, all chromium based systems require a special plugin developed and installed to allow sharing the screen within the browser. One more challenge that our team overcame was executing the code in a separate Docker container, which was supposed to be managed from the front end using web-sockets. This task was crucial to implement to ensure the stability and security of the application.

I'm impressed by Anadea's speed and flexibility in adjusting to our requirements. Anadea allocated a full-fledged team of software engineers to rapidly build and launch the final product. Within just six months, the team had delivered the requested platform. Efficient project management including regularly scheduled calls ensured a smooth workflow.

Michelle Sun

First Code Academy