Tag: team-cumulonimbus

Blacksburg, VA., Apr 17, 2015 – ­ An image that described the theme of the week is of a roller coaster. With so many up’s and down’s and a Friday night deadline, the project’s status wouldn’t remain constant. In the end, however, Cumulonimbus made their application live and received good feedback from their colleagues!

In the beginning of the week, the team’s goal was to move everything to the VT server. “Everything is functional on the local server. We need to set it up on the VT server provided by the Computer Science department. Then, we’ll add features that will only work when running it live,” said Tyler. When they asked Dr. Luther, their advisor, to setup the server, many random small errors prevented success. Monday wasn’t the most exciting day, but Dr. Luther recommended another technology to use called Heroku. Heroku is a different cloud service that comes with Django.

Long story short, hosting via Heroku instead of Virginia Tech proved to be a great recommendation! Setting up on the VT servers continued to cause problems and the team decided to use Heroku instead. It provided a server that was easily configurable. The only downside is that data storage is limited to 5GB from Amazon’s services, compared to the storage that the Virginia Tech server gives allows its users.

For something that hosts media, 5GB of data is slightly concerning. “Our focus for the short­-term are photos. Smartphones typically have high-­resolution cameras, so they take high­-res photos. High-­res photos do take up a decent amount of space, but to evaluate the applications, 5GB should be good enough,” said Romico. Video’s are a different story, since they take a considerable amount of space. A solution would be add more storage space, but videos are currently out of the scope right now.

The team asked their peers to check out the application. They were given little instructions; essentially a QR code was given. It was a hit! People generally liked the application. By judging the positive user experience, Cumulonimbus concluded that the application’s UI was simple to understand and navigate through.

With a working prototype, a decent amount of work remains. The website’s information architecture needs more tuning, which includes the organization and navigation of data. For the website’s design, the team is in the process of finding a color scheme, adding icons (based on the low-­fidelity prototypes), and additional focus on the main page.

Another focus is to lower the barrier of entry. Currently, the QR code is the best way to navigate to the website. The downside is that a user must have a QR code scanner on their phone. If the user doesn’t have one, he or she must download one from their respective app store. This extra step can be a major obstacle that will make it difficult for users to locate the website.

Cumulonimbus will try to prepare their application for the evaluation phase. The live event that will be used for evaluation is called “Relay For Life”. “Relay For Life” is a 24-­hour event where communities gather and honor cancer survivors, lost loved ones, and “fight” back against the disease. Each member knows a couple organizations that will participate and will ask a few of their members to use PhotoClouds.

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.

Blacksburg, VA., Apr 10, 2015 ­- Team Cumulonimbus had the opportunity to visit the Moss Arts Center. The focus of the week is to combine Django and Bootstrap, to get one talking to the other. Finally, they ended the week creating an evaluation plan.

So far, each part has been working by itself. One of us would continue on the front­end while the back­end would be worked on by another one of us. This was mainly due to the learning process ­ both frameworks are new to the team. At the beginning of the week, Tyler mentioned, “We need to have front end and back end talking by the end of the week.” To stay on pace to the schedule, this needed to be done. Cumulonimbus accomplished this goal by Wednesday afternoon.

Although the integration was a great milestone for the team, it’s imperative that they use the momentum instead of letting it die out. Now, the next steps are more concrete. Each part still requires a decent amount of work. The UI currently involves a functional navigation bar. The graphics, which include the icons and color scheme will be provided by Matt’s sister, a graphic designer. The back­-end may require the most work out of the two, since Django is the more unfamiliar framework. The team members are really just figuring the basics at this point. For example, Tyler said, “We’ll need a way to host static files on a separate server. The mode I use to run Django is very simplified. Once I turn on the full service, we’ll need to host these files separately.”

In addition, Cumulonimbus prepared an evaluation plan this week. This is to prepare for the upcoming evaluation for the high fidelity prototype, known as the common prototype. Since they don’t have a client, it’s up to them to figure out a way to evaluate it. Right now, the idea is to test the application during Relay for Life. “Relay is scheduled after our high fidelity prototypes are due, conveniently, and we could recruit our friends to take pictures throughout the event,” says Matt. A couple specifications that Cumulonimbus will look out for will be barrier of entry, ease of use, and any bugs found.

It’s the perfect environment to test the application. With the evaluation plan set, Cumulonimbus will work on completing that high fidelity prototype.

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 human­computer 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.

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.

Blacksburg, VA., Mar 20, 2015 – Team Cumulonimbus presented their material this week, along with five other groups. A Q&A session followed afterwards. These presentations determined a “Go/No-Go” status.

The halfway point of the semester has just passed and this presentation was essentially a status report for the semester. In addition, receiving feedback is an invaluable tool to a great project. Tyler, Matt, and Romico reviewed the past couple weeks, prepared the prototype, and brainstormed future plans. They briefly touched on the research in early February, to the contextual analysis, to a demo of their prototype, and finally the plans for the rest of the semester.

Evaluation is key to success. The Q&A sessions always prove to be a success. The audience was very engaging and constructive ideas bounced from audience to presenters. Team Cumulonimbus received fair feedback from their peers.  Now, team Cumulonimbus must use it to their advantage.

With half of the semester left, Romico, Matt and Tyler are ready to finish. But to finish, they’ll have to start. The next steps will essentially be the implementation of the design. They designated the month of April to design and implementation. In addition, they will self-assign deadlines in order to keep a pace throughout the month. In the near future, the team will start building the foundation to PhotoClouds

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.

Blacksburg, VA., Mar 20, 2015 ­ After taking a week off, team Cumulonimbus is back at work. It’s always difficult to transition back into the workflow but each person had to press on to fulfil the next deadline. Next on the schedule is the prototype phase. Through the contextual analysis and the requirements extraction, the initial prototype was made.

Tyler, Matt, and Romico prepared low ­fidelity prototypes for their team meeting. This approach allowed many ideas and themes to be spread out across many prototypes. A low­fidelity prototype is essentially the simplest type of prototype, mostly made from sketches. In addition, each person created prototypes for the android system and the web.

When they gathered and shared their ideas, they realized that each person’s prototype had a unique strength. At the team meeting, Matt says, “Tyler’s prototype focuses on ease of use, Romico’s prototype focuses on design, while my prototype focuses on social aspects.”

The approach was a success! The team was able to “pick and copy” certain features of each person’s prototype to create a medium ­fidelity prototype. Romico’s intuitive, well laid out design would serve as a base while incorporating Tyler’s ease of access and Matt’s social components. During the testing phase, users responded with positive feedback.

While the prototyping phase seemed a success, the team must move on to the next goal. At this point, the group must consider if the project can continue and move on. Essentially, this is the Go or No­Go time period for the group. Each person seems optimistic and interested in continuing to further develop the PhotoCloud application.

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 human­computer 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.

Blacksburg, VA., Mar 3, 2015 – This week, team Cumonlonimbus devoted time to launch an analysis of its subject. Called a contextual analysis, the group gathered information from interviews, organized it, and reviewed their results. Although it did snow quickly this week, it did not deter the team from completing these tasks!

Before analyzing data, data must first be obtained. The team strategically interviewed five people that do take many photos, whether professionally or as a hobby. Next, the team (physically) creates a WAAD: A Work Activity Affinity Diagram

The interview notes are written onto sticky notes. Then, team members take a sticky note and attach it onto a wall through tape, based on similarities. When clusters form, the team decides to pick a keyword that describes the certain cluster. This process is repeated multiple times until the team is satisfied.

In addition, the team decided to create simple personas to represent scope categories created from the WAAD. Matthew Bock says, “We can determine common points of interest between groups and ideas important to one group that may have a positive impact on other groups of users.” These personas will grow in the next stage.

The WAAD helps by highlighting find common user thoughts and experiences. Finally, those notes are used to build interaction requirement statements. These statements will help Team Cumulonimbus during the prototype and design phase by highlighting the certain areas or goals that the team can pursue. Three categories from these interaction requirement statements are “Collaborative Photo Albums”, “Easily Accessible Interface”, and “Multiple Upload Methods”.

After this milestone, the team has decided to take a week-long break. Sometimes, the semester does tax the body physically and mentally. When the break is over, classes resume and the same goes with team Cumulonimbus. They will focus on researching the prototype process in order to attempt a prototype impression.

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.

Blacksburg, VA., Feb 27, 2015 ­ Laying a foundation is important. In construction, it supports the building or structure that it is on. When things or systems fail, the foundation will surely stay steadfast. In the human body, our skeleton supports all of our organs.

Cumulonimbus created a project timeline for the rest of the semester. It consists of weekly goals, with milestones, in addition to team member responsibilities. “I love planning these things out. It gets us on a pace, if not already on one,” said Romico Macatula. “It also brings clarity to role assignments, like ‘who is doing what’, etc.” Planning for future months can be a difficult process though. Romico said, “I think all three of us would agree that planning for specifics was tough because we would have to consider schedule flexibility.”

Creating a project plan exponentially benefits a team. Even if it’s a basic skeleton, it does serve by creating a pace for the team. Creating a plan allows each member to communicate their thoughts on roles as well It also allows the team to be on the same page with one another. Communication is a key concept to success.

With the project plan set, Cumulonimbus moves forward to their next goal: Finish the contextual inquiry and analysis. Their goal is to interview at least 5 people. Next, a WAAD (Work Activity Affinity Diagram)​will be created which will be followed up with the analysis.

The Photo Clouds Team 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 human­computer 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.

Blacksburg, VA., Feb 20, 2015 – “It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained.” – Queen Elizabeth. Before athletes perform on game day, they spend a lot of time in preparation and training. Before students take a test, they spend a good amount of time studying, and in essence, training. Before we take on this big project, we’ll spend time in research and in preparation.

This week, we conducted a literary review and analysis. We searched for articles that would provide possible research and information towards our system of “photo clouds”. “We are trying to get a grasp of current social media trends to determine if there is a desire for the system like the one we are designing,” said Matt. Through analysis, we recognized a need for a powerful back end system. Security and stability will be the key focus for the back end.

In addition, we conducted a competitive analysis by creating a competitor matrix. Our group pursued applications with similar goals as our goals. We picked Xim, Carousel, Flickr, Sharypic, Cluster, Picasa, Phanfare, SmugMug, Shutterfly, Facebook, Eversnap, and Instagram. Also, we brainstormed possible dimensions based on some of the goals. The matrix was created and formed an analysis for each application. One thing we learned was that some of the applications that we initially liked had big cons.

The Photo Clouds Team 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.

Blacksburg, VA., Feb 13, 2015 ­ In the Human­-Computer Interaction Capstone class, students formed teams based on project interests. Matt, Tyler, and Romico will be working on a “Photo Clouds” project this semester.

Visualize a day during summertime. Clear skies, a cool summer breeze, and a bright sun overlay outside. Ten minutes later, the atmosphere changes dramatically. Clouds suddenly fill the sky into an overcast. That’s when everyone knows that a storm is coming. Rain falls on the ground and it brings up newness and life. Matt, Tyler, and Romico are these clouds forming together. Their plan is to bring something new to the field.

Matt Bock pitched this idea to the class. “This idea came up when I my extended family came over one time. I realized that many photos were being taken through smartphones. Then, family members would ask to send them certain photos and I noticed that process took a while,” said Matt. “The basic idea is to set up a cloud during an event and have all photos taken during the event to be stored in that cloud.”

We noticed during a scouting assessment that this idea isn’t new. Applications already exist with most of the features that we desired. It was discouraging but only for a few minutes. Our next idea is to find ways to bring a new concept to the idea. Questions to ask would be, “What are those applications lacking? Is there a new creative idea that us 3 can figure out?”

The Photo Clouds Team 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 human­computer interaction at their disposal, the team is dedicated to creating the best experience possible for their users through rigorous testing and design iteration.