2023
Ferra Ag
Farm management desktop app - SAIT Capstone project
Requirements & business rules
This was my SAIT capstone project and our client was an actual farmer. They wanted a mobile app to track everything happening on his farm - cattle, rice and crop yields, dogs, equipment like shovels and hoes with maintenance records, and tractors. The idea was to have all of it in one place so he could look back at the data and evaluate how the farm was doing over time. We gathered the requirements by talking to him directly. Nothing was formally documented - we just had conversations and turned them into features. Four months, team of 3-4 people.
Technology stack
| Language | Dart |
|---|---|
| Framework | Flutter |
| Database | Firebase, Firestore |
Flutter made sense because we needed one codebase for both desktop and mobile app and didn't have time to build two native apps. The catch was none of us had used Flutter before. Firebase and Firestore were picked because they got us a working backend without needing to set up and manage a separate server, which saved a lot of time given our timeline.
Challenges & solutions
01 -Keeping the project moving when team members went quiet
Problem
Some team members had other commitments and would go quiet for stretches. Their tasks would sit unfinished and block progress for the rest of the team.
Solution
Whoever had capacity picked up the unfinished tasks and kept things moving. Usually that meant me. It wasn't always comfortable, but it was the only way to hit the deadline.
Result
Delivered the app on time. It was also my first real lesson in what team coordination actually looks like in practice - not everyone contributes equally and the project still needs to ship.
02 -Learning Flutter and Dart under a fixed deadline
Problem
None of the team had used Flutter or Dart before. We had to learn both while building a real app for a real client in four months.
Solution
Used the official docs and tutorials to learn exactly what each task needed, no more. Broke the UI into small isolated widgets so different team members could build different sections in parallel without stepping on each other.
Result
The app was delivered within the timeline. Working under a deadline forced better learning habits - you learn what you need for the task in front of you and move on.
Results & impact
We delivered a working app by the end of the four months. My main contribution was the frontend - designing and building the UI in Flutter, trying to make it look approachable for a client who wasn't technical at all. It was my first time working in a real team, first time using Git collaboratively, and first time learning a new language under a real deadline. A lot of firsts in one project.
Screenshots
