Final 10-Hour Capstone Post

For my 10-hour spring capstone project I decided to learn how to make a simple android app. I wanted to do this project, because I took multiple coding classes in high school, but I hadn’t had an opportunity to code in college yet and I wanted to make sure that I didn’t lose any of my prior knowledge. I also thought it would be interesting to create an android app, because when I think of coding I think of phone apps, but I had not made one before this project. Before I started to relearn how to code I did some research on the easiest outlets to make a phone app. Through my research, I came across the application Android Studios, which uses java and C++ code to create android apps. I decided that this would be the best route for me, because I already knew a little bit of both languages, so I chose to focus my efforts on an android app rather than trying to learn the coding language Swift for an Apple app. I spent a good amount of my time watching youtube videos and looking over my code from my past classes to try and relearn the basics of java coding. Once I felt like I had enough of the foundation I started looking up videos on how to use android studios. It probably took me more than 10 hours to complete this project, but I eventually was able to make a basic calculator app. Here is some of the code I made for the graphics part of the app: 

Most of the challenges I faced were related to learning how to code the graphics, because I hadn’t made an app with graphics before. I also think that being at home yielded a bunch of extra distractions that made it more difficult to find time to complete the capstone. Additionally, for me, it was hard to get anywhere with the project without working on it for 2-3 hours at a time and a lot of times it was hard to find that amount of time in my busy schedule. Part of me thinks that it would have been easier to self-motivate if I was on campus and away from distractions, but I guess that I did struggle to stay motivated. For my next project, I hope to have a couple partners that can help me stay motivated and who can help me come up with bigger and better ideas. Originally, I wanted to create a much bigger app, but I decided that the simple calculator did still help me a lot in terms of learning how to put graphics into an app. Another thing that I could do better is setting a goal for what I would complete during each session of work, because there were times where I didn’t get much done, because I didn’t have an end goal that I was shooting for. Overall, I’m glad that I completed this project and I think I will try to make an even better app in the near future. Here is a picture of the final product: