guide
Oct 21, 2025

Project Onboarding - Fall 2025

Project onboarding guide for the Fall 2025 term.

Welcome to the blog, app developers! We are excited to onboard new members onto the team in preparation for the project we’ll be doing this term. In this blog post, we’ll outline all of steps you need to take to contribute to App Development Club projects.

Project Summary

This term, we will be working on a Live Bus Tracking app for OSU/LBCC students. Our main goal will be to replace a few existing apps, TransLoc (only shows BeaverBus), CTS (Only Corvallis Transit), and BeavUs (mixes both). BeavUs is probably the biggest “competitor” because they track both the CTS and BeaverBus. However, their interface leaves a lot to be desired, so we have a good opportunity to improve what already exists in this market.

Table of Contents

Here is everything you will need to setup for our club this term:

Project Setup

Become a Member

You are required to be on our GitHub member list in order to contribute to our repositories. Please DM the club President (Sebastian Torresola) on Discord - his handle is @torresos. Include your GitHub username in the DM, and we’ll add you to the member list.

Install An IDE

If you are interested in contributing to code, you’ll want to install an IDE. We recommend VSCode if you aren’t sure about which one to get. You can find their download link here: https://code.visualstudio.com.

Once you’ve installed VSCode, there are a few extensions we recommend installing.

How to install an extension

extension tutorial

  1. Docker
  2. Python
  3. Live Share
  4. Prettier - Code formatter
  5. Thunder Client (for API testing)
  6. Tailwind CSS IntelliSense

Once you’ve installed your IDE and installed all the above extensions, you should be good to go for this section.

NodeJS

Lets install one of the more commonly used programming languages in our club, NodeJS.

You can find the installation here: https://nodejs.org/en

Follow the installer’s instructions, no additional configuration is required.

Once completed, ensure NodeJS is installed by doing the following.

MacOS:

  • Press Command + Space
  • Search ‘Terminal’ and open it
  • Type node --v
  • You have Python installed if you see something like: v?.?.?

Windows:

  • Press your Windows key
  • Search for Command Prompt and open it
  • Type node --v
  • You have Python installed if you see something like: v?.?.?

Git

Git is the way our club shares code and maintains a version history of our code. It is the industry-standard but our school doesn’t do the best job of teaching it (until CS 362), so its better you get to learn this tool now.

You can download it here https://git-scm.com/downloads.

Once downloaded, verify the installation by opening your Terminal/Command Prompt and typing git -v. If you get something like: git version ?.?.?, you have successfully installed git.

Docker (optional)

We use typically Docker to make developing apps across different types of devices easier and also deploy apps quickly and reliably. If you haven’t heard of Docker or want to learn more, check the docs out: https://docs.docker.com/get-started/workshop/

To install Docker, click on the “Download Docker Desktop” button on this webpage: https://www.docker.com/

Follow the instructions the installer gives you, no additional configuration is required.

It is a bit tricky to get working on Windows, so if you are having issues please send a DM in our Discord server asking for help.

Figma (optional)

If you want to contribute to our app designs or view them in any way to reference when you are coding, you need to sign up on Figma.

Navigate to https://figma.com/ and create an account if you haven’t already. Then, click this team invite link to join our organization.

If you can view our Figma files, you should be ready to go!