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.