Last September wrote we already talked about it, the start of four new colleagues, including three interns. One of the three was Robin, who pretends to be React trainee is going to focus our own Motorcycle tour app. Now that his internship period is over, it's time to draw up the bill. How did Robin fare and what did he think of his internship at Coffee IT?

Different, of course… Although I would have preferred to spend more time at the office in the company of the entire Coffee IT team, I still managed to make the best of it. Fortunately, I just came in between the big (corona) waves and I still spent a few weeks at the office. As a result, I was able to spend at least the acquaintance and habituation phase in a physical environment before being banished to my attic room. I was also able to experience my share of physical company outings and activities and the digital alternatives (hosted by the Culture Crew) were certainly no less fun. All in all, I think that the circumstances of the past few months have certainly not had a too negative effect on my performance and that I have received the “Coffee IT experience” well.

MotoTour was a challenging app to work on. Because the app has not been around that long and we received a lot of user feedback, there was a lot to be gained. It is easier to recruit new users when the product they are going to use works well. After all, it has to be better than what they are using now. This ensured that I was extra motivated to create a good product and I think that I certainly succeeded. I really felt that I had a lot of input into the project and I had the opportunity to implement my own ideas. This motivates the developer and also ensures a better end result. During development, however, I also encountered many problems due to my still fairly limited knowledge of React apps and the challenge that some desired features brought. During my internship, however, I discovered (even more) that asking for help has many advantages, because two pairs of eyes see more than one.

First of all, I'm super proud of the progress I've made with the MotoTour web app. Via this app it is now possible to create new routes based on a GPX file (GPS Exchange Format). These routes are then visible in the MotoTour app for iOS and Android and can be ridden in this app. Existing routes can also be adjusted to follow better/nicer roads, for example.

I also worked on my own implementation of HERE maps within React. Existing implementations of this technology did not provide the functionality required for the MotoTour web app, so it was necessary to develop a custom version. The new version has been rebuilt and uses an existing implementation as its base. Furthermore, I added various features during my internship, such as calculating and displaying routes based on 2 or more coordinates and the possibility to adjust these displayed routes by adding, moving and removing these coordinates. Because we wanted the library to be publicly accessible, attention has also been paid to improving ease of use and setting up documentation and a demo page.

Finally, I am very proud of the personal learning goals that I was able to achieve during this internship and the opportunity I was given to achieve them. The ultimate goal of an internship is to gain practical experience and apply the knowledge you acquired in school. At Coffee IT I certainly got the chance to do this and I am happy to say with the help of my results that I certainly succeeded!

Coffee IT was one of the first internship companies I came across on my search and after that I didn't look any further. I was immediately sold on the appearance and way of working and immediately submitted my application. Fortunately, after an (online) job interview, I was quickly invited for an official introductory interview and I was also allowed to choose my assignment right away. During my internship I have seen almost all my expectations come true. The assignment offered sufficient challenge and room for own initiative. The team was also super fun and I felt at home from the start.