DEV Community

Cover image for 37 App Ideas for Bootcamp Students & Code Newbies
Sylwia Vargas
Sylwia Vargas

Posted on • Updated on

37 App Ideas for Bootcamp Students & Code Newbies

I was recently told that every time we make a to-do list app or a weather app, a koala dies somewhere. Let's stop this together!

Below are some app ideas that loosely came to my mind. I added emojis to make it easier for you to identify the apps that could become your next passion projects:
💕 helping others / more friends
🌍 sustainable world
👩‍⚖️ social justice
🧞‍♂️ everyday practical
🎁 misc

1. Metro locator 👩‍⚖️ 🧞‍♂️ 💕

  • an app locating the closest subway stop that has an elevator

2.Food-sharing app 🌍 💕

  • share food you won’t eat
  • bonus: maybe an option for restaurants to join and a separate UI?

3. Social gatherings 💕

  • an app that helps you engage strangers in random impromptu games/challenges/conversations -- it could use geolocation to see whether another app user is in proximity

4. Brain teasers 🧞‍♂️

  • an app for bored people that sends fun activities, brain teasers or goofy challenges

5. Teamwork is Dreamwork 🧞‍♂️ 💕

  • pair-programming app that helps you set up fruitful collaboration
  • bonus: accountability check

6. Hands-free game 🎁

7. Text generator 🎁

8. Coding quiz 🧞‍♂️ 💕

  • a quiz-based site that challenges you to transform functions to arrow functions, to use destructuring or translate methods between js and ruby

9. Sentiment-based news site 🧞‍♂️

  • a news site that uses IBM Watson to determine if a given news piece feels angry, etc.

10. Money counting app 🧞‍♂️ 👩‍⚖️ 💕

  • an app that helps people with dyscalculia to determine how much money they have in the wallet

11. Art generator 🎁

12. Bookmark extension 🧞‍♂️

  • an app/extension that helps you save a link to your bookmarks
  • bonus: it could also work on slack

13. Fluffy Alexa skill 🧞‍♂️ 💕

  • an Alexa Skill that tells you nice things every day
  • bonus: maybe they are in some way personalized?

14. Online treasure hunt 🎁

  • bonus: 💕 with an option to communicate with others? Or, a leaderboard?

15. Carbon footprint calculator 🌍

  • an app that calculates how much carbon footprint your grocery shopping/general habits contribute to and educates you on eco-lifestyle

16. Water waste calculator 🌍

  • an app that calculates how much water your clothes used to be created (and maybe invites others to do the same?)

17. Timeline! 🎁

  • an interactive timeline of some music history / game history / social justice stuff

18. Front page generator 🎁

  • a website that creates a newspaper front page with news of your choosing or with media uploaded by you

19. City trivia 🎁

  • an app for people who just moved to the city that responds to geolocation and sends out facts about the area

20. Browser history detective 🎁

  • OMG imagine a game in which you are given someone’s browser search history and on that basis invites you to make some guesses about the person

21. Gamer's bingo board 👩‍⚖️

22. Making sidewalks even 👩‍⚖️ 💕

  • an app that helps you report uneven sidewalks instantly, with a click

23. Trading app 🎁

  • a sneakers/Magic the Gathering card trading app

24. Film production call sheets 🎁

  • an app that helps you builds a call sheet for film production

25. End subscription? 🧞‍♂️

  • an app that helps you keep track of your online subscriptions
  • bonus: it sends notifications when the free trial is done or sets a reminder on your phone (in your calendar app?)

26. Bug tracker 💕

  • a cute app that helps you and your team log the errors/bugs you got this week and invites you to celebrate as a team every 100th bug

27. Trivia 🎁

  • an app that sends you push notifications/emails every day with some very specific trivia

28. More app ideas 🎁 🧞‍♂️ 💕

  • an app that generates app ideas

29. Plant parenthood 🧞‍♂️

  • an app that reminds you to water/move your plants.

30. Horoscopes 🎁

  • mad-libs horoscope app

31. To the loo 👩‍⚖️ 🧞‍♂️ 💕

  • An app that helps you locate the nearest available bathroom, allows you to rate its cleanliness/accessibility, leave comments + has a filter for gender-neutral bathrooms

32. Data Viz 🎁 👩‍⚖️

33. Dating app for social justice warriors 👩‍⚖️ 🧞‍♂️ 💕

34. Humane meetings 🧞‍♂️ 💕

  • a meeting scheduling app that forces you to include in the agenda 15-minute breaks every 3 hours and an hour-long lunch break

35. Better carpooling 👩‍⚖️ 🧞‍♂️ 💕

  • a carpooling app that prevents drivers from canceling on people with disabilities or PoC

36. Loving chatbot 👩‍⚖️ 💕

  • a Slack chatbot that corrects your messages with regards to inclusive language

37. Weather app?? 🧞‍♂️

  • a weather app (hold off your judgment) that actually tells you how to dress -- New York's 50F is very different from Berlin's 50F due to humidity

Top comments (44)

Collapse
 
ssimontis profile image
Scott Simontis

This is by far the coolest list of app ideas I think I have ever seen.

Mad props!

Collapse
 
sylwiavargas profile image
Sylwia Vargas

Wow! Thank you! Your comment motivates me to:
a) write more!
b) MAKE these apps :D
Thanks!

Collapse
 
ssimontis profile image
Scott Simontis

It's ambitious but I think I may do something modeled after #22 with traffic infrastructure in general...I used to work for traffic engineering firms and if enough people were willing to share data of how long they are stuck at lights it could produce enough data to create an empirical basis for forcing the Dept of Transportation or city Civil Works to do a traffic study at an intersection to recalculate timings. The super ambitious route would be throwing it into a ML model and finding the most optimal traffic signal timings!

Thread Thread
 
sylwiavargas profile image
Sylwia Vargas

I love it!! That’s a very important issue considering how much time is spent in cars. Awesome! If you do it, share it! I’ll be super curious to see it.

Collapse
 
dhintz89 profile image
Daniel Hintz

I've gone through dozens of these app-ideas lists - this one is by far the most creative and interesting. I love #3 and #19!

Collapse
 
tomasroj profile image
Tomáš Roj

Great content. Keep it up! Btw would you be interested in giving me feedback on my article? dev.to/tomasroj/basic-controls-ado...

Collapse
 
sylwiavargas profile image
Sylwia Vargas

I'm so sorry! I saw your comment only two years later. I hope all is well on your end.

Collapse
 
akdeberg profile image
Anik Khan

Just mind-blowing!😍 This article is timeless. More and more people need this to save koalas😉
I will definitely dive into some of those. Thanks for sharing.😊

Collapse
 
madcode99 profile image
madcode99

this is some thing new
hahhaha i finally find something to do

Collapse
 
colinrhys profile image
Colin Rhys

Great post. I also went to a bootcamp and tried to come up with different ideas for project with friends. Great 👍 list!

Collapse
 
sylwiavargas profile image
Sylwia Vargas

Thank you! How kind. Now that I work at a bootcamp, I decided to create resources that help students and code newbies not worry about fluff stuff like this :)

Collapse
 
colinrhys profile image
Colin Rhys

I mean it. #28 is great 😉. Great resource. I wish i knew about this website when I want at the Bootcamp.

Collapse
 
memitaru profile image
Ami Scott (they/them)

I love how many of these are targeted at helping marginalized groups and communities. There are a few bathroom finder apps but I've been thinking about putting my own spin on it because I know finding gender neutral bathrooms is always a challenge for me.

Collapse
 
sylwiavargas profile image
Sylwia Vargas

Exactly! I am always trying to integrate as much information about socially-conscious tech as possible. If you end up creating such an app, I'd be really happy to see it!

Collapse
 
agitaev profile image
Seid Akhmed Agitaev

I am actually working on #28 as my final year project🙄

Collapse
 
sylwiavargas profile image
Sylwia Vargas

Oh, that's amazing! If you remember to share it once you're done, I'd love to encourage my students to use it! ❤️

Collapse
 
mushi99 profile image
Mushira Shaikh

Heyy, How was it? I wanted to do a similar project, did u publish any paper??

Collapse
 
lorenzomarsicano profile image
Lorenzo

Wow!

I wanted to do something to learn some front-end and back-end dev (I'm mainly an embedded developer) and this is the best idea list I've ever seen.

Thank you!

Collapse
 
sylwiavargas profile image
Sylwia Vargas

How wonderful! I’m so curious what you’ll create. If you end up making something, please share — I’d love to add links and examples to the blogpost to help people get connected and inspired!

Collapse
 
julianperezpesce profile image
Julián Pérez Pesce

Damn what a great brainstorm!!! Thank you, as a noob react junior, I could try

Collapse
 
sylwiavargas profile image
Sylwia Vargas

Yessss...! I can recommend some good starter tutorials if you’d like!

Collapse
 
julianperezpesce profile image
Julián Pérez Pesce

Yes please, recommend me!!! Thank you!