What I have so far for the Zoo Lab. Uses a model, view, and collection to append new animals to the page.

ZooLab

jQuery ->

  #Let's make a model guys!!
  class Animal extends Backbone.Model

  #Let's make a collection of those models
  class Animals extends Backbone.Collection
    model: Animal

  #Main Application View
  class ZooView extends Backbone.View

    #Set the view's connection to the DOM (el) to our html body
    el: $ 'body'

    initialize: ->

      #we're using underscore's bindAll method
      #to basically make sure all methods are run in the context of @ (this) whenever they're invoked
      _.bindAll @

      @collection = new Animals
      #bind the add event to the appendItem() method
      #whenever we add to the collection, call the appendAnimal() method
      @collection.bind 'add', @appendAnimal

      #calls the render method
      @render()

    #renders the view in @el (the body)
    render: ->
      #adds empty list for us to append to.  Not really needed.
      $(@el).append '<ul></ul>'

    addAnimal: ->
      #grab value of user input
      input = $('#animal_input').val()
      animal = new Animal
      animal.set name: "#{input}"
      #add the newly made animal to the collection
      @collection.add animal

    #trigged when we add to the collection
    appendAnimal: (animal) ->
      $('ul').append "<li>#{animal.get 'name'}!</li>"

    #When you click the add button, trigger addAnimal()
    events: 'click #add': 'addAnimal'

  #instantiate our main app view
  zoo_view = new ZooView