I’m Doing An Internship!

Starting this week, I will be going to an internship. The internship is at Yash Technologies located in Woburn, Massachusetts. It will last from March 30th to May 30th. This opportunity was presented to me by my father who works is a project manager at the company. As a result of this experience I hope to gain knowledge about the technology industry. During the internship, I will be learning how to use Dell BOOMI, a middleware software used to integrate various technologies into a company. I feel that I am prepared for this internship because of the classes I have taken in high school. In the past four years, I have learned Visual Basic, C++, Objective-C, and Java. This will impact my future career because it is a great resume builder and I will be able to go into future internships or jobs with previous experience. I chose the internship instead of staying in school because I prefer to get hands-on experience instead of learning from a textbook. I am very excited to get started and will keep updating the blog.

Weekly Reflection (3/16 - 3/20)

I learned an important lesson this week. Not all programs are created equal. My thought process had been that since I had developed Banana Boom, creating the Help Desk app could not possibly be that much harder. I was completely wrong. Not only is the Help Desk app a much bigger challenge than previously anticipated, but it is also a project for which I will need to learn new material. For Banana Boom, I had primarily created the user interface straight from the code. However, for the Help Desk app, I will need to visually create interfaces using Apple’s Interface Builder. Creating the interface will require the use of Collection and Table Views, which I have not become too familiar with yet. Additionally, after the visual aspects are set, they need to be connected to pieces of code, which was also not required in Banana Boom. Therefore, to develop Help Desk Mobile, I will have to stretch beyond my comfort zone. However, I believe that this will help stretch my horizons and mold me into a better programmer. This setback will most definitely affect our proposed deadline of April 1st and we hope that it can be extended to May 1st. By this time, I will have mastered my new skills and will be able to provide a better overall application.

Other than the app, I have also been solving technology problems in Help Desk. Last week, Mrs. Dacey came down and asked if we could help her make a slideshow in iPhoto. Creating the slideshow was surprisingly easy. All we had to do was select the photos we wanted and choose create slideshow. With the help of my fellow Genius, Mira, we were able to also add text and music to the slideshow. All in all, this week I learned a lot about iPhoto and was able to help someone as a I learned.

Weekly Reflection (3/2 - 3/6)

This has been an exciting week for me. On Wednesday, Banana Boom was approved and became available for download on the iOS App Store. Since then, in a period of only four days, the game has racked up over 150 downloads. Mrs. Scheffer also wrote a post about the app on the Burlington High School Help Desk Blog. Additionally, there were several tweets made by users about the game. Reviews on the app store were also positive, with an average rating of 5/5 stars. With all this positive response, Mike Seleman (my partner in crime) and I considered the release a success. During school, fellow students would mention to us that they enjoyed playing our game and would give us feedback.

However, the game was in no way perfect. We realized on the very first day that it had a fatal error. The game was only available on iOS 8.1! This meant that people who had not upgraded their devices could not play our game. We immediately began work on an update and were able to make the game iOS 7.0 and later compatible the very same day. The update is currently in review with Apple but is expected to become available sometime next week. Despite this issue, we were pleased with the game and hope that it reaches an even wider audience with the update.

Weekly Reflection (2/23 - 2/27)

This week I started creating the new Burlington High School Help Desk App for iPhone and iPad. The ideal vision for this application is very similar to the Domino's Pizza App. The user should be able to send descriptions of their issues directly to the Help Desk using the app. Help Desk members will then have the opportunity to tackle a given problem and devise a solution right from the comfort of the Help Desk headquarters. Once a solution is found, the Help Desk member will inform the user or ask him to come down to the Help Desk for further assistance. This will lead to greater efficiency in the Help Desk. Additionally, it will eliminate the need for students to leave class and wait in the Help Desk while their solution is being found. The development of the application is expected to near completion this Monday. However, as with all things tech, if an issue crops up, it could tack on a few extra days. All in all, the app is expected to make its debut in the iOS App Store around March 16th. Stay tuned for the weekly updates as development continues!

Weekly Reflection (2/9 - 2/13)

This week I was able to achieve one of my long standing goals: creating an iOS app and submitting it to the App Store. With Mike Seleman, my partner in crime, we created this game from scratch in approximately 2 weeks. All the images were drawn pixel by pixel by Mike and all the code was hand-typed by yours truly. The tools we used were Xcode, to create the actual app and write the code, and Gimp, to create the images. We recently submitted the app to Apple for review and hope that it will be approved and available to the public sometime next week. The game is named “Banana Boom” for reasons which will become evident to you once you play it.

Another notable event which occurred this week was my presentation at Medfield High School during their Digital Learning Day Conference. During this event, Jhymon Moodie, a fellow Help Desk student, and I led the “iPad 101 to the Rescue” session. During this seminar, we taught the teachers (ironic, I know) how to use the iPad effectively, from configuring the settings to multitasking gestures. Presenting at this event was a rewarding experience because of the positive feedback I received from the audience following the seminar. In the future, I hope to share my experience in BHS's 1:1 technology environment with other educators and do my part in advocating for the similar programs throughout the region.Who knows, I might even get the chance to do a bit of advertising for "Banana Boom" on the side?