Month: April 2015

Press release #8: Pass It On! Inc Makes Plans for Evaluation; Implementation in Progress

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Blacksburg, VA, April 10, 2015: In the past week the team has continued development on Pass It On!, having plans to have a functioning high-fidelity prototype working by the end of next week. The team has also been working to come up with an evaluation plan for the following weeks so they can continue to make revisions to the system.

Since last week the team has made some major modifications to the interface for the system for what they believe will be a much more enjoyable user experience. Most of the changes have been in the form of a modified menu which they believe will help the site flow better. Changes to some of the page layouts and option menus have been made to make the site more accessible. All of the pages necessary for the site to function have been implemented and currently the team is making refinements to these pages and working on linking them to the servers.

The team has also worked to come up with a solid evaluation plan for the week after getting the high-fidelity prototype working. The main focus of the evaluation will be user interactivity and how the team can improve the site from a user’s standpoint. As a final goal we hope to have a working service capable of account creation, the posting of services, and creating a secure environment for transactions. For our evaluation, we will work with our sponsor and one of his graduate classes to analyze and breakdown our product and its effects on a community.

“I’ve been focused hard and working with Minahm to finish the front end work. I feel like we’ve come up with a solid plan and I’m looking forward to share it with everyone once we have it completed” – Matthew Chittum

“I’ve been learning a lot recently about designing the database for the back end of a web site, but I’ve also been making a lot of progress! The tables are all done for the database and now I’m going to start hooking it up to the front end!” – Joshua White

“Although we had many challenges this week, we were able to get a lot accomplished. We were able to establish the structure of our backend as well as beginning implementation. This week will be very important as our goals will include setting up a login system and finalizing the website design.” -Minahm Kim

Press release #8: Civil War driving tour app prototype in the works, user evaluation plan is in motion

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BLACKSBURG, Va., April 10, 2015 – This week was a productive week for the team Kool Katz, consisting of the three developers, Laura Avakian, Seth Canon, and Ryan Kiel. Kool Katz continued their development of the Civil War Driving Tour app.

Last week, Laura and Ryan were able to make progress setting up version control for their project and creating a skeletal design of the app on Xcode. Additionally, they came up with a solution that would satisfy the client and professor’s needs in that they would be implementing a running feed of comments with each individual site which is in the works.

This week, development continued for the skeleton of the app. The data entry of the tour sites and accompanying information, though a tedious task, is coming along. This will allow the developers to make sure the information is being properly presented on the different app screens.

The team was able to get the screen with list of tour sites working, which the user will be able to select each site from and potentially change up the list of sites to their personal liking. Additionally, the screen that loads the tour information was developed, and will need to be more extensively tested once the data entry task is complete.

Apart from the development, the team came up with an evaluation plan that will be executed in the next couple weeks when the high fidelity prototype is complete. This evaluation plan discusses a variety of questions, standards, and methods of surveying potential users that will give the developers a more in-depth understanding of what the development needs to be focused on. 

For example, the team wants to make sure that users find the app to be straightforward and intuitive, and thus will evaluate how many times the user gets confused overall, and where.

“Right now we are in a really good place. Our high fidelity prototype is coming along nicely and accompanying it is a solid evaluation plan,” says Laura.

Next week, the team will continue development and will have a high fidelity prototype complete. The high fidelity prototype will be what allows the developers to further interview potential users about what they like and do not like about the app itself, and the evaluation plan will be executed in doing so. Stay tuned!

Contact Laura Avakian for any further inquiries.

Press release #7: Cumulonimbus Tackles API’s

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Blacksburg, VA., Apr 6, 2015 ­ Team Cumulonimbus focused on API research this week, determining the pro’s and con’s of certain technology. It was no easy task since each of us had little familiarity with the API’s that caught our attention.

The main focus this week was figuring out which API’s to use for the front­end and back­end. One aspect that the team pursued was simplicity. Matt says, “The key right now is to find easy­ to ­learn, simple, but powerful API’s.” It sounds very “cliché”, but it’s the truth. For example, would Ruby on Rails be better fit than Django? These were the style of questions the Tyler, Matt, and Romico discussed throughout the process. The certain technologies that caught their eyes were Django and Bootstrap.

For back­end technology, the two main points of focus is on databasing and ease of use. Tyler added, “Yeah, we’re looking for something that’s not advanced and complicated, but something that is easy to start with. Next, databasing and support for website sockets would be the next specifications.”

For front-­end technology, the team did not have much specifics. The biggest concern is support for the mobile version. At this point, there’s really not much “competition” in the front­-end department. “Bootstrap already has a lot of our main functions but more importantly, it supports mobile development,” says Matt.

By the end of the week, Django and Bootstrap appealed to the project’s demands. Now that the API’s have been the chosen, the next step is to master them. Alright, maybe master is too much, but the goal is to gain comfortability using these API’s. The simple way to solve that is to start tinkering around. Now, both of these technologies are unfamiliar with the team, but Cumulonimbus says that they’re excited to learn. “It’s awesome that we get to learn together and not have to depend on one ‘specialist’ for this project. I think this will be a unique experience for each of us,” says Romico.

Team Cumulonimbus is a team of three senior level computer science students at Virginia Tech: Matthew Bock, Romico Macatula, and Tyler Haines. All three of them have extensive skill sets in computer science after their years of study. With several semesters of experience in the field of human ­computer interaction at their disposal, the team is dedicated to creating the best experience possible for their users through rigorous testing and design iteration. Any questions or comments, contact Romico Macatula at rmac817@vt.edu.

Press release #7: AddHawk Sets Up Server and Begins Coding

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BLACKSBURG, Va., March 20, 2015 – AddHawk is a group of Computer Science students taking their Human-Computer Interaction capstone project to a massive scale. They begun working on an application called PixelPusher, a massive crowdsourced display in Lane Stadium, using all the attendees mobile device screens as pixels.

Updates on PixelPusher:

This week the AddHawk team spent a lot of time setting up the back end of the project, more specifically the server. Most of the week was used to get ready to dive head first into coding and creating the application. This included working to set up the Phalcon PHP framework on each person’s computer, retrieving root access to the server, and deciding on what platform to develop the application (mobile or web).

Initially a few challenges were encountered when setting up the server with Phalcon but after some research and consulting with our domain specialist, Dr. Kurt Luther, all of the problems were resolved. As was mentioned earlier, the team also decided which direction it wants to head in with the development of PixelPusher. After discussing the pros and cons of Android, Apple, and a web application the AddHawk team decided to first develop the application on Android and then add different platform options as needed. While the original plan was to develop for both Android and Apple devices, after doing research into the logistics behind retrieving a developer’s license and distributing an application on the iOS App Store the team found that it was not possible in the given time period.

“A developer license for Apple costs close to 100 dollars and the standard wait period for releasing your first app onto the app store is around 6 weeks. Looking at the time we have left in the semester and the resources given to our team, it is not feasible to develop in both Android and Apple.” explains frontend developer Dillon Gresham.

The team also feels that if a web based application is necessary one can be quickly created once the framework of the application has been set up.

A Look into the Future:

The majority of the time in the upcoming weeks will be spent creating an interface for Android phones as well as continuing production of the servers and backend to optimize the application’s performance. A lightweight and intentionally limited interface is focus in these beginning stages of development. Once we get the interface up and running, it will be connected with the backend services in order to allow for preliminary testing and debugging. In addition to this Android interface, the team will begin development of an admin control panel accessible via a web platform. This control panel will then be linked with the Android interface and backend services to allow for communication between these two entities.

Mission Statement:

PixelPusher will allow football fans in Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech to display individual pixels on their phones which are part of a larger image. In this way PixelPusher acts as a crowd-sourced collaboration application that will bring together football fans everywhere. PixelPusher also aims to break the current world record of 400 connected devices. The application will be developed with the idea of simplicity and efficiency at heart, providing a lightweight, seamless user interface to football fans at Virginia Tech.

“AddHawk is an up and coming software development initiative aimed at revolutionizing how a single member of a crowd can have a huge impact on an event. ”

For more information or questions please contact: cmw2379@vt.edu

Press release #7: J5 Begins Development

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Blacksburg, Va., April 3, 2015 – J5 has begun their final prototype for the gaming social network!

J5 has already planned out the schedule for development of the Final Prototype in an effort to make development as smooth as possible. Team member Iyaz Shaikh believes that planning is a key component to the swift and successful development of the app.

Team member Iyaz Shaikh said “We feel that a successful team project should have a solid schedule for development in order to avoid complications and crunch time. For each week we have planned out the features we want to implement.”

J5 also began looking past the prototype at various development options:

“We want to use a cross-platform development framework so in the future we will be able to expand the use of our application.”

As most of the major planning deadlines have come and gone, J5 has begun to hit their stride in the development of their application. “We are excited to begin implementing a real working prototype” said J5 team member Parham Ghazanfari.

For the next few weeks, the main focus for the team is going to be the actual development of the application as well as testing and debugging. Most of the team’s efforts so far have been put towards researching and designing the application.

J5 – “Let’s Play Together” Contact person: Lucas Eckert <lucase93@vt.edu>

Press release #7: Civil War driving tour app in the works, development begins at last

Kurt Luther Leave a comment

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 3, 2015 – This week was an important week for the team Kool Katz, consisting of the three developers, Laura Avakian, Seth Canon, and Ryan Kiel. Kool Katz began their development of the Civil War Driving Tour app.

Last week, the team presented to their professor and their HCI class, acting as potential users, and described the project. They presented the general overview of the project, the current state, where they are going, gave a demonstration of their medium fidelity prototype using Prototyping on Paper (POP).

Seth was out of town and unfortunately not able to work with the group this week, but Laura and Ryan were able to make progress setting up version control for their project and creating a skeletal design of the app on Xcode.

One of the issues pointed out during the Go/No Go presentation that occurred the previous week was that it did not necessarily encompass enough of a social component. It was suggested that we pursue integrating this in order to fulfill the project requirements.

“[A] reason to pursue this direction is to align with the course theme of ‘creative social computing’. Without the user generated content angle, I’m not yet convinced that the project fulfills either the social or creative component,” says Professor Luther.

The client, Paul Quigley, requested it be a bare-bones driving tour, so to satisfy both his and Luther’s concerns, Laura and Ryan brainstormed and came up with a solution. The team will be integrating a running feed of comments with each individual site. Because this is a driving tour, information pertaining to recent weather, traffic, etc may be valuable to others taking the tour. People will be able to comment with suggestions or just to give a “heads up” about certain things. Additionally, history buffs may want to add their tidbits about the sites for whoever is interested.

Next week, the team will continue development and start to divide down to working on the actual features themselves — starting with the presentation of the tour sites. Stay tuned!

Contact Laura Avakian for any further inquiries.

Press release #7: Pass It On! Inc Takes Big Steps to a Final Prototype

Kurt Luther Leave a comment

Blacksburg, VA, April 3, 2015: This week Pass It On! has made large strides towards finalizing development. The team agreed on definite rolls for backend and frontend work, with work moving at a very fast pace. With definite roles being assigned and tasks being assigned, the team is confident in having a great product in the future.

“I’m solely working on the front­end aspects of the site, which I really enjoy since I find interface design to be fun and rewarding. I’m looking forward to gaining feedback of my work once we have the site functioning” ­ Matthew Chittum

“I’m starting to work on the back­end of the site this week. It’s really exciting for me because this is the first time I’ve gotten to work with the back end of a site!” ­Joshua White

Since last week, the team has brainstormed and came up with changes to the UI of the site. Some of these changes were created by members of the team while other changes were from suggestions from the presentation last week. The team plans to develop with the User primarily in mind, planning to perform more usability testing in the upcoming month once the site is in a functional state.

“Feedback from our testers and peers has been extremely valuable in helping us make design decisions.” ­Alex Ciccone

As decisions are made on design, the usability of the website is becoming concrete. These decisions also allow for the team to begin organization of our backend and linking it to the front end.

This coming week with the implementation of the back end, the team hopes to have the connection established to allow for user account creation and login. During this development the team will keep security in mind to provide users with a sense of comfort and confidence. The team is working hard to bring this project to fruition as quick as possible while keeping high quality in mind. Follow the team as they make progress to a final product.

“We are making good progress, planning out our back end, and making decisions on usability and design. The team is gaining momentum as we make leaps in development to a final product.” ­Minahm Kim

Press release #7: Prototype and Board Creation

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Blacksburg, VA; April 03, 2015 –

Things are picking up on the battlefield, as the battlefield is literally being created! Our original design used a 9×9 grid of cubes to make a 3D board. This would allow us to use better skins for each cube. After much deliberation, we are now implementing a 9×9 grid of tiles. Because the game is going to be played on a 2D vector (with a few 3D graphics), we felt a grid of tiles would be more efficient and easier to manage. They are easier to manage because the square tile art we decided to use fits perfectly on the tile, and do not need to be multiplied for the cube.

Speaking of art, we are also designing the tiles to represent the different terrain on the board. For the background layer on the tiles, we decided to make vibrant balls. Vibrant balls you ask?! When the balls are aligned they show each individual tile without needing the grid. This will create a more immersive board. Also, when we add layers and effects to the tiles, the balls become less vibrant, but still visible. This will keep the objective of the game clear while adding some flair.

Screen Shot 2015-04-06 at 11.31.13 AM

Lastly, we are working on a prototype using Gamemaker. As per peer request, we are developing our mid-level prototype using Gamemaker. Gamemaker is easy to use and does not require a lot of the high end development to start letting people test our game. This will allow us to release our game sooner for testing, while continuing to develop it in our primary game engine.

Our goal for the next week is to finish initializing the board so we can move on to the pieces. Once the board and pieces are finalized, we’ll focus on programming movements, turns, and possibly an A.I. As the beta gets closer to being finished, we will start asking fans to join us in our first closed beta.

Remember, when Abraham Lincoln was told he had one hour to prepare for battle, he spent 45 minutes sharpening his sword. So sharpen your swords and I hope to see you on the battlefield soon!

For more information, contact Joe Wileman at wjoe113@vt.edu.