This is my second week of working on my semester project, and I think overall it is going well. On last Friday and Monday of this week, I set up my IDE's so I could start practicing some with the app design. It has been a while since I last created an Android application, and I have never done anything for an Apple device, so it has been a good week of learning and review.
The IDE I am using for my Android program is Android Studio, which is a JetBrains application. It is very similar to IntelliJ, which I do know how to use, so it has been nice that I do not have to learn a completely new setup. I have mostly just been messing around with layouts on Android Studio and learning how I will build the front-facing part of my app, but I have not looked too much into the programming part yet. The only main bump in the road I have met was when I was trying to figure out how to rotate a picture that was not being displayed correctly, but it turns out the problem with that was part of the pictures properties, and nothing with Android Studio.
For my Apple app, I am using XCode for my IDE. I thought about using JetBrains' AppCode IDE, but I was told that XCode is going to have more features and abilities than AppCode would, so that is why I stuck with XCode. As of right now, I have just been completing a few tutorials from the Swift developer site so I can learn a few basics, but I do not know how prepared I am to actually start programming the app. But I figure the best way to learn is just to do it, so we'll see how next week goes, as I am planning to start one of my sprints next week. But that will not start until next Wednesday, so I will deal with that when I get to that point.
Friday, September 30, 2016
Friday, September 23, 2016
Week 1 Accomplishments
This week was the first week of actually starting to work on my semester project. I had been researching some information over the past couple of weeks, but I actually got started with some design stuff this week. On my Gantt chart that I created for this project, I decided that this week, I would get started on the database part of the app and with designing what I wanted the pages of the app to look like.
For the database part of the app, I created a table for the user which will hold the user's NUID, first name, last name, Loper email, and estimated date of graduation. There is also a table for holding the traditions for the app, and the fields in that table are the tradition number, tradition name or title, tradition description, and the tradition instructions for how to complete it. There is also a table that joins the student and tradition tables, and it has the student's NUID, the tradition number, the date the tradition was completed, and the photo that the student took. We might include some sort of calendar in the app, so I also have a table that will hold upcoming alumni events that the users could go to, since the app is for UNK's alumni association. Another table is for the number of traditions that a student has completed. We are not sure exactly what prize a students would get for completing a certain amount of traditions, but this table would keep track of what type of prize the student would receive and how many traditions would have to be completed first. The there would be another adjoining table between this one and the student table with the student's NUID, the number of traditions that was completed to get to this step, and the date that that level was reached.
I have also started working on drawing what I think the pages should look like, and I will include those images at the bottom of this post. The designs and layout for the app are based on a couple of other tradition apps I have looked at. It will hopefully be fairly simple and easy to use for the user. The designs will eventually vary a little between Android and iOS, but for now, they appear the same. The biggest design differences will probably be more with functionality of the app rather than appearance.
For today and next Monday, I am going to work on setting up the IDE's for developing the app and make sure I know how to user them. I am planning on using Android Studio for the Android app, and I think I am going to use XCode for the iOS app. I am going to look into XCode more over the weekend, but first I need to get access to XCode on the Macs in the school lab.
Pictures of my designs I drew. Right now they do not have any color, but I imagine that the main color on them will be Loper blue.
For the database part of the app, I created a table for the user which will hold the user's NUID, first name, last name, Loper email, and estimated date of graduation. There is also a table for holding the traditions for the app, and the fields in that table are the tradition number, tradition name or title, tradition description, and the tradition instructions for how to complete it. There is also a table that joins the student and tradition tables, and it has the student's NUID, the tradition number, the date the tradition was completed, and the photo that the student took. We might include some sort of calendar in the app, so I also have a table that will hold upcoming alumni events that the users could go to, since the app is for UNK's alumni association. Another table is for the number of traditions that a student has completed. We are not sure exactly what prize a students would get for completing a certain amount of traditions, but this table would keep track of what type of prize the student would receive and how many traditions would have to be completed first. The there would be another adjoining table between this one and the student table with the student's NUID, the number of traditions that was completed to get to this step, and the date that that level was reached.
I have also started working on drawing what I think the pages should look like, and I will include those images at the bottom of this post. The designs and layout for the app are based on a couple of other tradition apps I have looked at. It will hopefully be fairly simple and easy to use for the user. The designs will eventually vary a little between Android and iOS, but for now, they appear the same. The biggest design differences will probably be more with functionality of the app rather than appearance.
For today and next Monday, I am going to work on setting up the IDE's for developing the app and make sure I know how to user them. I am planning on using Android Studio for the Android app, and I think I am going to use XCode for the iOS app. I am going to look into XCode more over the weekend, but first I need to get access to XCode on the Macs in the school lab.
Pictures of my designs I drew. Right now they do not have any color, but I imagine that the main color on them will be Loper blue.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
My name is Rachel Feddersen and this is my blog that I am keeping for my senior seminar semester project. I am a senior computer science major here at the University of Nebraska at Kearney with math and Spanish minors. I am pursuing a Spanish minor because I think it is really important to be able to speak more than one language. I studied abroad in the spring of 2015 in the Czech Republic, and while I was over there I visited 12 countries. I have also been to Canada a couple of times and I really want to go to Costa Rica next summer to finish up my Spanish minor.
My semester project that I am working on for my class is an app for an organization that I am in on campus. The organization, Blue Gold Brigade, is a student run group that works to connect students and alumni for creating networking connections and continuing traditions on campus. The app that I am making is going to be a traditions app that will be for all students at UNK. The alumni board is working on creating a list of traditions, and then those traditions will be incorporated into the app. There will probably be somewhere between 30 and 50 traditions when the app is ready to role out, but that might not be until next fall. But for this semester, I am going to lay the ground work for the app so when the traditions are decided upon, it will not be hard to add them in and make the final changes.
The purpose of the app is to get students connected on campus and excited about things that used to happen a long time ago that they can still be a part of. With the app, the students will be able to select a traditions and upload a picture of them completing the tradition. And if all of the traditions can be completed by their graduation, they will be able to get some sort of prize. We might also have it have checkpoints that if a certain number of traditions are complete but it is not all of them, maybe the students will still get some prize. We will work out that part of it later, but it is just a thought for a potential feature.
I know my adviser for the organization and I are really excited about the potential for the app and we cannot wait to get started on it. Hopefully we can get it done for next school year and it will be a way to get more students connected.
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