Blog Post #9: Week 14

Welcome to the final blog post! Team Puffin has come to the end of our senior inquiry journey! In our final week we worked on finalizing the leader board and working out some bug fixes. Our list of high scores shows the top ten highest scores currently present in the database and when a new high score is added, the lowest one is deleted from the database.

We also now have the incorrect characters shown in red when a player makes a wrong guess. This makes it easier for the player to notice what exactly they got wrong in their answer. The keyboard is set up to stay open all the time so that the player doesn't lose time clicking on the edit text every time they start to type their guess.

It was also discovered that the app has a bug that only affects some devices for some reason. Some devices are unable to access the file on Firebase containing all the call signs for an unknown reason. To fix this, we put a copy of the text file in the the app's raw folder so that if they are unable to get the file, they still have the original one. However this does mean that if the text file in Firebase is updated, some devices will not be able to retrieve that new file. Luckily the majority of devices do not have this issue.

We presented our final project and everything went smoothly! We would like to express our appreciation to Dr. Stonedahl for his unwavering helpfulness and support over the course of our project and to Dr. Vincent for his guidance and enthusiasm in testing our app and suggesting how to make it better!

Blog Post #8 Week13

As we approach our Sprint two deadline, we are working on implementing a few more additional features, such as Pile-ups, Competitive mode(with different difficulties), Leader board, and highlighting missed letters by the user while playing the game.  

This week we have advanced on the new features we plan to implement. We have started implementing the competitive mode of the app. With three difficulty levels. We also have a leader board implemented that displays the top 10 scores in the difficulty the user chooses. We also have added an upper and lower limit to the CW speed. We also worked on improving the audio quality.In addition to those features, we have worked with our advisor to do some code reviews and have been working on fixing bugs. 

Blog Post #7 Week12

This week was mainly used to clean up existing code and the beginning of the implementation of the new features. We have begun the implementation of the new difficulty settings and refactored the current activities. There were also a minor addition of a frequency setting to the game. There were also some implementations to protect users from themselves such as limiting text to numbers in settings and adding limits to the WPM setting.

We also revamped the UI. It is now more professional and easier to read.

There is much more to come! Stay Tuned!

Blog Post #6: Week 11

The sixth blog post is all about sprint one! We fixed the last couple of bugs on Monday, the day before the demo. On Tuesday of week 11, each group presented their team app for the first time to the class on Discord. Our client, Dr. Vincent, was also there for our demo. He is the Augie professor we are making this app for and has been advising us as we develop it. We decided to present on Discord instead of Google Meet because Discord plays audio from live presentations, unlike Google Meet. We need the audience to be able to hear the callsigns and static being played from our app as we present it.

We presented first and started by telling the class about the purpose of the app and a little bit about Ham Radio. We then started showing them our app. On the first main screen, there are buttons to go to the about screen that has information about the app, a button to see the leaderboard, and a button to start playing which takes the user to the settings screen. We explained the settings to them and showed them how to play the game. When the game ended, we went to the end screen that shows the user's score and gives the users the option to access the leaderboard or go back to the first main screen.

The leaderboard is not implemented yet but is one of the things we want to add for the second sprint. We also want to implement two playing modes, practice (which is what we have now) and competitive. The user will be able to change the settings as they please if they are in practice mode but not for competitive mode. Competitive mode will have preset settings that the user cannot change and is where the scores for the leaderboard will come from (which will have the top 10 scores). We are also thinking of giving the users partial credit and showing them which characters they got right and wrong after each guess.

After our presentation, we received questions and comments on our app. Dr. Vincent told us that he likes what we made so far and that the additional features we are planning on adding will make the app even better. Our first sprint went well and now we are working on features for the second and final sprint!

Blog Post #5: Week 10

Welcome to the fifth blog post! Team Puffin has added to the app in the past week as we rapidly approach the end of our first sprint!

Speed and static are now both adjustable settings before the game starts. The user no longer has the option of going to settings in the middle of the game, only to select them before the game starts. Going back to the settings page means quitting the current game.

When the user makes a guess about a call sign, the correct call sign appears on the screen along with whether the user got the call sign right or not. All the call signs are arranged in a scrollable list above the text box where the user inputs their guess. Call signs now play automatically as soon as the game starts and as soon as the user finishes making a guess. The "Send Call Sign" button has been changed to the "Replay Call Sign" button because of this switch. Instead of pressing it to get a new call sign, new call signs are played automatically and the button is now used to replay that same call sign in case the user wants to hear it again before guessing.

We also now have a launcher icon (the image on the left) and there have been several bug fixes, including not letting the user play multiple call sounds at the same time and stopping the call signs from continuing to play if the user exits the game activity. As we reach the end of sprint one, I'm very proud of what my fellow puffins have accomplished!

Blog Post #4 Week 9

Welcome to the fourth blog post! As we move to distance learning, keeping up with our daily work has been quite challenging. However, with the help of  Dr. Forest Stonedahl and Team Puffin's ability to adjust quickly, we have managed to move forward. Our focus as we approach our first deadline, is to have essential features working. From these features, here is what we have done so far.

 1. We were able to download the list of call signs from Firebase storage to use in our  main game activity, which also means that we added Firebase Storage into our app. 

2. We were able to create Morse code sounds using these call signs by using a helper class. We first
started experimenting with  Sound Pool but we decided to change to Audio Track, to create these sounds.

3. We were also able to get the main game screen timer to count down. This time value can either be from the default value or value entered by the user in the settings. 

4. We also linked it to the End Activity once that timer runs out.











5. We also added parent activity to the settings activity.

Blog Post #3 Week 8

Welcome to the third blog post! Things have been hectic with the whole pandemic going on, but Team Puffin has persevered! With an extended break, we have had a chance to flesh out the app a lot more. We created the activities that we need for all of the features. We have also received feedback on our app and we have decided to make a few changes, but we will go over those after I present the new additions.

1. The first major addition was creating the main game activity. It has the bare bones required, but currently is still a work in progress. It has a type field so a user can type in answers, it has a settings button that goes to the settings activity and also the send call sign button which will check if the user inputs the correct answer.
2. The next major activity is the settings activity. This is a settings activity with four basic features. The first it to set up a personal call-sign, the second is to set CW (words per minute) speed, the third is to set the time, and finally the last one is to set static. The settings page can also become more fleshed out if we decide to add more features.
3. The third activity made was the leader board activity which just added a view for the top ten scores and also added a link to firebase.
   
   
4.  There was also an end screen which links to the start or leaderboard activity and also the about activity has scrollability.

Blog Post #2: Week 6

Welcome to the second blog post! Since the first blog post, we did a couple of things with our app. First, we added Firebase to our app. We did this by making a new project on Firebase and connecting it to our app through the Firebase website. We followed the directions on the site that included putting in the android package name and the SHA-1 key, downloading and inserting the google-services.json file into our app in android studio, adding the provided code to the build.gradle files to add the Firebase SDK, syncing the changes, and finally running the app to complete the process. We are going to use Firebase to store the top users' scores.

We then created the UI for the start screen when the user opens the app. The start screen includes a text view for the title of the app, which is "Ham Radio Simulator", and a start, about, and leaderboard button. When the buttons were added to the start screen using android studio on one of the computers in the Olin lab, the leaderboard button was not cut off and was in its proper place. However, that is not the case when I run the app on my computer, which is where the screenshot on the left is from. Therefore, we need to change our app so that the buttons are shown correctly on every screen, no matter the size.


Another feature that was added was the about screen. When the user presses the about button on the start screen, they are taken to the screen on the right. The about screen tells the users what the purpose of the app is and who developed the app.

Starting Out (Week 5)

For our first blog post, we'll be explaining our project proposal. We plan to make a ham radio simulation app that allows people to practice interpreting Morse code. When you open the app, you have the options of starting the game, reading the about, or looking at the leaderboard.

If you choose the leaderboard, you are taken to a screen that displays the top ten highest scores that have been achieved by all users of the app. These will be stored in Firebase.

Our about page will just display basic information about the app.

If you choose to start the game, you will be taken to the settings screen. This allows you set your call sign, change the speed of the Morse code you will be interpreting, set the length of time you want the game to run for, and choose if you want static playing to make the sound of the radio simulation more realistic. The settings can also be accessed and changed at any point during the game by pressing the settings button.

Once you start the game, you will hear a series of call signs and you have to type in what you believe the call sign to be. If you got it right, your score increases by one. If you didn't, the letters you got wrong are displayed in red in the space above the keyboard.

After the allotted time is up, you are taken to the ending screen, which allows you to either play again or open the leaderboard.

We plan to begin coding this weekend and are going to start with making the Firebase database and creating the UI.