💻 Week 11 Lab
Final Projects, Discussion, and ✍️ Problem Set 2 Wrap-up
By the end of this lab, you should be able to: i) get help with any remaining ✍️ Problem Set 2 questions before Thursday’s deadline, ii) set up a GitHub Project board for your final project group, iii) discuss how Google extended the 12-Factor App for AI applications, iv) think critically about what it means to own code produced by AI tools.
In the 🖥️ Week 11 Lecture, we covered the 12-Factor App, GitFlow, GitHub Project Boards, how Copilot can interview you to build a shared instructions file, and the six final project briefs. Today you sort out any last ✍️ Problem Set 2 questions, get your project boards up and running, discuss what happens when you extend the 12-Factor principles to AI applications, and complete the course survey.
📍 Session Details
- Date: Tuesday, 31 March 2026
- Time: Check your timetable for your class slot
- Duration: 90 minutes
📋 Preparation
- Attend or watch the 🖥️ W11 Lecture.
- Know which project group you belong to (check your email from Jon). If you haven’t received confirmation yet, come prepared with your first-choice project in mind.
- Have your ✍️ Problem Set 2 repository open if you still have questions before Thursday’s deadline.
🛣️ Lab Roadmap
| Part | Activity Type | Focus | Time | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part 0 | 👤 Teaching Moment | Problem Set 2 catch-up | 10 min | Last-chance questions answered |
| Part 1 | 🎯 Action Points | Project board setup | 30 min | Board with columns and first Issues created |
| Part 2 | 🗣️ Classroom Discussion | Software engineering and AI ownership | 20 min | Honest conversation about what you know and don’t |
| Part 3 | 📋 Course Survey | Course evaluation | 10 min | Survey completed |
| Part 4 | 🦸🏻 Super Tech Support | Open support | remaining | Individual help with Problem Set 2 or projects |
Part 0: Problem Set 2 catch-up (10 min)
This section is a TEACHING MOMENT
Barry opens the lab by asking the whole class: where are you with ✍️ Problem Set 2? Any specific questions? Anything you are stuck on? This is an open, conversational check-in.
✍️ Problem Set 2 is due Thursday 2 April at 8pm. This is the last chance to ask questions as a whole group before the deadline. After today, use the #help Slack channel.
Part 1: Project board setup (30 min)
🎯 ACTION POINTS
By now you should have received an email from Jon confirming which project group you belong to and which project you have been allocated.
👥 Haven’t received confirmation yet?
Work with your first-choice project for now. You can adjust the board later once allocations are finalised.
Sit with your project group and work through the following steps together.
Step 1: Create a GitHub Project board
Open your group’s GitHub Classroom repository and create a Project board with four columns:
- Backlog: things you know you need to do but haven’t started
- In Progress: actively being worked on by someone
- In Review: a PR is open and waiting for a teammate to look at it
- Done: merged and closed
GitHub’s “Board” layout in Projects does this. If you haven’t used it before, the GitHub Projects documentation walks you through it.
Step 2: Create your first Issues
As a team, identify the first deliverables from your project brief and create an Issue for each one. For example, a Project A group working on Food Producers might create:
- “Set up extraction pipeline skeleton”
- “Define table merge detection logic”
- “Build Streamlit interface scaffold”
- “Write reference answer set for benchmark”
Adapt these to your own project. The goal today is to get something on the board, not to produce a perfect plan. Issues can be edited, split, and reassigned at any time.
Step 3: Assign a cross-group contact (if relevant)
If your project involves coordination with other groups (specifically: Project A groups across sectors, and B1/B2 groups), designate one person as the point of contact for cross-group communication now.
Part 2: Software engineering and AI ownership (20 min)
Note to class teachers: Encourage honesty about what students know and don’t know. The “known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns” can be a useful frame to help them think about what they know and don’t know. Close the segment by reminding the class that the final project rubric rewards (human) reasoning and the ability to explain decisions. A pipeline that half-works with a clear diagnosis scores better than one that fully works but nobody on the team can explain.
This section is a CLASSROOM DISCUSSION
Barry leads this segment. The discussion covers how the 12-Factor App has been extended for AI applications, and what “owning your code” really means when AI tools write much of it.
In the lecture, you saw the original 12-Factor App. Google published an update in 2025 that adds four more factors for AI-era applications. Read the full article here: From the Twelve to Sixteen-Factor App (Google Cloud, 2025). If you haven’t read it yet, open it now and skim the four new factors (XIII through XVI) before the discussion starts.
Part 3: Course survey (10 min)
The LSE runs a course survey every term, and your feedback genuinely shapes how this module is taught next year. It takes about 3 minutes.
💡 Note: Please assess all the instructors you have interacted with
(Jon counts as a teacher too!).
Barry will project the survey link (or QR code) on screen, then leave the room for 10 minutes while you complete it. This is so your responses are independent and you feel free to be candid.
Part 4: Super Tech Support (remaining time)
🦸🏻 Super Tech Support
Barry returns and circulates to help individuals and groups with:
- ✍️ Problem Set 2 questions before Thursday’s deadline
- Project board and Issues setup
- GitHub workflow (branches, PRs, project boards)
- Anything else that came up during the session
Appendix | Resources
Course links
- 🖥️ W11 Lecture
- 📦 Final Project
- 📔 Syllabus
Software engineering
- The 12-Factor App
- From the Twelve to Sixteen-Factor App (Google Cloud, 2025)
- Refactoring Guru: Code Smells
Git and collaboration
AI coding tools