This answer is mostly for students who used an algebra approach. I don't know if Fourier himself thought up the series this way, but it is common today. I left a lot of steps out and mainly showed ideas that I struggled with when I first tried to motivate the Fourier Series.
I'll start off by observing a trigonometric polynomial:
$T(x) = c_0 + c_1 \cos(x) + c_2 \cos(2x)+...+c_n \cos(n x) + d_1 \sin(x) + ... + d_n \sin(n x)$
where $c_n$ and $d_n$ are some non-zero value.
The goal is write the orthogonal basis, from there I can find the coefficients.
So, I need declare the inner product:
$<\textbf{f},\textbf{g}> = \int_0^{2\pi} f(x)g(x)dx$
Before I can obtain a orthogonal basis, I should first get the orthonormal basis by using the Gram–Schmidt process. Where $\|\textbf{g}_0\| = \|\textbf{g}_1\| =\|\textbf{g}_2\| = ... =\|\textbf{g}_n\| = 1$.
$\|\textbf{f}\|^2 = <\textbf{f}><\textbf{f}> = 2\pi$
Thus, $\|\textbf{f}\| = \sqrt{2\pi}$
and
$e_0 = \frac{\textbf{f}}{\|\textbf{f}\|}$
$\textbf{g}_0 = e_0 = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}$
$\textbf{g}_1 = e_1 = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi}}\cos(x)$
...
$\textbf{g}_n = e_n = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi}}\cos(nx)$...
$\textbf{g}_{n+1} = e_{n+1} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi}}\sin((n+1)x)$...
$\textbf{g}_{2n} = e_{2n} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi}}\sin(nx)$
The orthogonal basis yields:
$a_0 = \frac{2}{\sqrt{2\pi}}<\textbf{f},\textbf{g}_0>$ (Use 2 because it makes generalizing the coefficients possible.)
$a_1 = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi}}<\textbf{f},\textbf{g}_1>$...
$a_n = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi}}<\textbf{f},\textbf{g}_n>$...
$b_n = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi}}<\textbf{f},\textbf{g}_{2n}>$
Now that everything is divided into sines and cosines I can get the coefficients:
$a_n = \frac{1}{\pi}\int_0^{2\pi} f(x)\cos(nx)dx $
and
$b_n = \frac{1}{\pi}\int_0^{2\pi} f(x)\sin(nx)dx $
