web applications programming team
mentors: sully syed, dorrian porter
tools: php, javascript
company website
intro
Vestaboard is a startup based in South San Francisco building smart split-flap display boards, combining the looks and sounds of a cruicial element of old-timey train station while integrating all the smarts of modern day technology. Users can use their Vestaboard to write a message to their kids when away on business, see live sports scores, even be inspired by quotes from celebrities and influencers.
my work
Visual summary of features I added to the Vestaboard software ecosystem.
I worked at Vestaboard to implement Word-Of-The-Day, a “channel” (plugins that control the board, automatically collecting data from the internet to generate messages) that polled the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the day to display to the board using a combination of PHP and JavaScript. Creating my installable required that I write many new features, including RSS feeds, pagination (getting the server to queue and send a group of messages in order, since definitions took more space than a single ‘frame’ on the board), and progress bars.
other learnings
At Vestaboard, I not only got to learn web development concepts (using a LAMP stack) and a new programming language, but also got my first taste of small-scale startup culture. I got to experience the ups and downs of early businesses, see how executives manage a team and find other companies to work together with, and learn the importance of taking initiative to create proof of concepts of my ideas in order to more easily convince others.
Thank you also to Sully Syed for his many web development teachings as well as to Dorrian Porter and the rest of the Vestaboard team!