As a new programmer, it is important to work on creative projects which in the long run will help build your portfolio.

Programming projects will help you learn and take up what you currently know to the next level.

Theoretical learning can be really boring, doing projects and trying to solve problems can be fun and uplifting.

Today I will show you some of the best beginner programming projects that you can work on. 

1. Build your own chess game

This is a great portfolio project that you can build because it requires more than just building the board of the game, it involves building a lot of UI for the project. 

This project forces you to think because you have to think of the different ways the pieces can move and the patterns the pieces can emulate. You can start this project small by just building the chessboard, UI only. Then you can decide to make the pieces come to life with some more logic. 

If you intend to go further, you can keep score, you can achieve that by creating a scoreboard under the chessboard. You can start this project small and keep on building it up bit by bit. Building your own chess game is the best way to get real-life experience in manipulating variants, input/output, Artificial intelligence (AI) etc. 

2. Build your own calculator

A calculator is a popular beginner’s project you can start with. It is a project that you or someone you know can interact with. It’s a great project to build because it covers all aspects ranging from layout, logic, using different symbols that would be on the calculator.

Building a calculator gives you the room to practice writing a layout, logic that can read numbers and symbols as well as logic that processes information to give a result.

It is an easy project to build, you can start small and add on. You can by making a basic calculator and you can later take it further into a scientific calculator.

3. Build a to-do list

This is a great coding project to start with as a beginner, it covers different aspects of programming which involves what you need to create a simple UI, for example, animation, buttons, user interface and more. 

This project would help you understand all that you need to know from beginning to end. You can also start this project small by creating a basic to-do list and you can decide to go further and keep on growing the project.

4. Build a Rock-Paper-Scissors game

This is a popular game among kids.it is a project that is fun to build because you are not only building the logic and the randomising of the objects being paired together but you also need to build some logic for the robot that’s playing against you, for example, what are they going to choose, how is that randomised.

This project provides you with a product that is really fun to interact with, you can pick up and play immediately. Not so many people create this game so it can be a standout piece for your portfolio.

5. Build your own Tic-Tac-Toe game

The Tic-Tac-Toe game is a game that is common among kids. It is a game where a square of 9 boxes appears on the screen and whosoever first introduces an unbroken vertical, horizontal or diagonal line is considered the winner.

The trick part of building this game is in building the logic to know when the game ends, that is if there’s this number of ‘X’s in a row that is when the game ends or if there’s this number of ‘O’s in a row that’s when the game ends. You can go further to keep the scores of each player on the screen. 

6. Build a web scraper with python

This is a very important project to embark on. Web scrapers can be built with other languages but we are using Python because of how well it works with any project and because it is in high demand.

Web scraping is the process of extracting data from a website. This information is collected and then exported into a format that is more useful to the user. It can be a spreadsheet or an API

Building a web scraper is different from building UX/UI based projects because it is not anything visual but involves scraping the web to get data.

7. Create a mobile App

Creating a mobile app will require you to be familiar with programming languages like HTML and CSS in order to design a great layout for Android and iOS devices

This project will also give you the opportunity to create customized interfaces that are mobile-friendly as well.

This project will also give you hands-on experience with CSS and will help you improve your CSS language skill.

8. Weight converter

A weight conversion project is a great project for a beginner because it challenges you to create a layout and perform some logic that will respond to inputs. It forces you to think creatively in order to implement features that are not presented in other weight converters

This project is similar to building a to-do list, you can create a weight converter by using programming languages like HTML and JavaScript

9. Build a JavaScript slideshow

Building a JavaScript slideshow is a fun project that is not so difficult to accomplish. This project is important because it exposes you to the basics of Document Object Model (DOM) in the browser to give a dynamic nature to your website. One of the biggest advantages of creating this project is that you can use it over and over again. A web developer would not be complete without the logic of building a JavaScript slideshow. 

10. Build your own eCommerce store

Creating your own eCommerce store is a great project to practice your programming skill. The elements required for an eCommerce store are slightly more complex than a social networking site,  this project requires more than just a user database to function. In this project, you will need to create a script for the product page, shopping cart, set up Paypal, checkout etc. 

In conclusion, project-based learning is important to your coding journey because it helps to keep you motivated and it helps you practice what you have learned.

Now I’d like to hear from you

Which of the coding projects from this post would you start creating?