1. Computer Science Kiosk
Melanie Othon

2. Project Definition
“Develop an interactive application that showcases the computer science major.”
“It should be informative, visual, tangible, interactive, and fun”
Include a game that quizzes and informs
“The ‘CS KIOSK’ is intended to interactively tell students about computer science at SNC and demonstrate activities and projects that our majors are engaged in.”

3. Decisions, Decisions
Project description and requirements given, but a lot was still up to me
Brainstorming ways to make it fun and creative
Platform also up to me
Ultimately, wanted to try something new
Mobile development for me was uncharted waters, and seemed like a good challenge

4. Learning Curve At first was afraid of Java and Android Studio
Tried Xamarin for Visual Studio, bad experience, little documentation
Pleased to find that Java was easy to pick up with C# experience
Much initial confusion surrounding Android Studio & mobile development in general
Constant googling until I started to understand all the pieces
Me the first 3-5 weeks

5. Basic Outline / Solution
Knew early on I wanted upper tabs for easy navigation
Tabs include:
Home:
“students in action” - image slideshow
“Program gallery” - past program screenshots with descriptions
Info:
“Why join cs?” - student quotes
“What we do” - blurb of basic description
“Contact a professor”

6. Basic Outline Cont. Tabs cont. Meet the Students
ExpandableListView widget to display student capstone websites throughout the years
Classes
Major requirements, and those descriptions
Concentrations and those class requirements and descriptions
Cyberspace

7. Cyberspace Design
Ultimately wanted to give users a reason to return to the app
Something besides information
An app is not very good if it’s for one time use
Enough questions to allow user to play several times with little repetition
Created Lewis the Laptop for fun very early on
Thought Cyberspace was a good name for a game about technological trivia, set in space
And so I set it in space

8. Cyberspace Behind the Scenes
Essentials to the game:
Arrays containing questions and their respective answers (All organized in xml file)
3 categories of arrays
“AllQs” - size of 14, containing string question
“OneAs”/”TwoAs”/”ThreeAs” …. - size of 4, all string options for that specific question. Answer is at pos 0
“AllAs” - size of 14, array containing the 14 arrays above

10. Cyberspace Behind the Scenes Cont.
Essentials to the game cont:
Class of static vars
Keeping track of changing planet progression, LL’s battery percentage, and unused questions
Functions to reset these values upon restarting game
Class of planet values
Planet number values, their coordinates on the screen
Planets expertly drawn by me in MS Paint

11. STOP. DEMO TIME

12. Strategies StackOverflow of course
Android Developers site had lots of tutorials
Generally any forum I could find that had a solution
Getting started early on
Design ideas within first week
Look at the code every week
Never walk away from it broken

14. Knowledge Essential concepts: CSCI 350 essential
Actual image of me coding
Essential concepts:
Frequent functions, trying to limit spaghetti code
Classes, accessing data within
Event handling
CSCI 350 essential
C# → Java
Event Programming

15. Extensions “Futures” page Game could always be improved
Showing where alums are employed, what they’re doing, etc.
Game could always be improved
More incentive to return to the app

16. Advice Start early of course
Don’t leave it alone for more than a few weeks. Motivation drops
The more progress you make, the more excited you are to work on it
Someone somewhere has the answer. Don’t get discouraged

17. Questions??????????