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.