Before we begin, let me share something about myself, I'm not a writer and had no intention of starting a blog ever. However, about a week ago, I received an email from Devfolio congratulating me on my Polygon fellowship. I was overjoyed! The fellowship is an exclusive, eight-week mentor-led programme that will assist us in learning and honing our Web3 skills. Now I don't want to keep the experience and the things I learn here to myself. Thus I decided to write this blog.
Alright, enough backstory! Let's start with the first day of my fellowship.
The Induction and First Session ✨
We had our induction on the 13th. This is where we introduced ourselves to other people. Some were from IITs, others from IIITs, and some had already been hired by companies like Flipkart. Now, I'm not going to lie, being chosen as a fellow among them made me feel a bit proud of myself.
Right after the induction we had our very first session. This session was presented by Rahat who is a DevAd at Polygon. You can connect with him here. This session was all about Introduction to Web3 and Polygon. We also learned about the various Web3 domains, such as Defi, NFTs, and Metaverse. I've attached some pertinent articles and videos below that will assist you in better understanding these concepts so that we can progress together. 🚀
What is Web3?
What is Polygon?
What is DeFi?
What are NFTs?
What is Metaverse?
Week 1 Assignments 📓
After the first session we got some reading material. Now, this reading material is a Gold Mine of knowledge which was shared in the form of assignments. So, the basic idea is we learn as we do them. While I cannot directly share it with you, I will do my best to cover everything I learned from it.
The assigments were made in a way so that we can understand basics of how to use Web3 and wallet before we build on it.
Before you start working on these assignments, you must setup MetaMask Wallet in your brower.
Once you have it, you will need to have Polygon Testnet configured in it. If you are confused what a Testnet is you can refer this article here.
You can configure the Polygon Test by going to the footer of this website can clicking the "Add Mumbai Testnet" button with a Metamask logo beside it.
At last you will need some test MATICs in your wallet. You can add some by going to
Polygon Foucet, entering your Wallet address and click Submit.
Assignment 1 - Swapping Cryptocurrency 💱
The first thing I learn from here was to swap crypto currency. It was pretty seamless experience. I am attaching a small video that will help you out with Swapping. Don't forget to select the Polygon Testnet.
Swapping cryptocurrency on Quickswap
Assignment 2 - Exploring Polygonscan 🔍
Polygonscan is a Polygon chain explorer. Because blockchains are transparent, every transaction that takes place on them is visible to the public and can be observed by these chain explorers. Here I used the Transaction ID generated in previous transaction to learn more about it. You can learn more about the Polyscan from here
Assignment 3 - Deploying your Smart Contract 👩💻
This was the assignment that I enjoyed the best. Here I learned how to set up the web3 development environment locally and write my own smart contract. I also learned about node providers like Infura and Alchemy which allows us to set up our own Ethereum Node. This article here pretty much covers everything I learned through this assignment.
Assignment 4 - Minting an NFT on OpenSea ⛵
Alright, this was the first time I ever created my own NFT, and it can be accessed here The process is pretty straight forward, go to opensea, connect your wallet, click on create and fill the details. That's it. That's all it takes to mint your own NFT.
Second Session ✨
Our second session was with Steph, who is a DevRel at Polygon. You can connect with her here. We learned about DAOs in this session, which broadened our knowledge of the Web3 domain. We also gained a better understanding of Web3 architecture by learning about IPFS, a decentralised storage system for files and data. IPFS is frequently used in conjunction with Web3 to meet storage needs.
Finally, we heard about Infura, an Ethereum Node Provider similar to Alchemy. IPFS nodes are also available through Infura.
Yet again I am attaching the relevant articles below -
What are DAOs
What is IPFS
Using Infura to Upload File to IPFS
Thank You
So yeah, that was all about week 1 at Polygon Fellowship. Thanks a lot for reading, hope this article was informative and fun to read for you. 💜
#WAGMI 🚀