STUDENT PROJECTS

Watch this space as every Tuesday and Thursday as we feature a new Student or Group Project!

If you would like to see your app/personal or group project showcased in section, post it on the #project_showcase Slack channel and share with your Community Managers. Feel free to post your projects on the discussion forums and social media using the hashtags: #GoogleUdacityScholars and #GrowWithGoogle.

To motivate myself, I set a goal of actually submitting it to the Google Play Store before the official end of the course in early April. This would also give me the experience of going through the publishing process, and remove that mental obstacle for (hopefully) future apps.

Udacity: How long did it take you to create the app?

Tze-Ping: About 3 weeks. I worked on it every night after the kids went to bed, from 10pm to about 1am.

Udacity: What advice can you offer to someone else interested in creating an app and getting it in the Google Play store?

Tze-Ping: Believe it is achievable, set a goal and just start, then make baby steps but don’t stop. That said, my greatest obstacle in this process had been the never-ending changes in my own requirements for the app :slightly_smiling_face:. Every time I learned something new, I want to add it to the existing design or functionality. While it is good for learning, this process quickly becomes very overwhelming, especially for a first app. In the end, I decided to draw the line on a reasonable set of features for a first release and work towards implementing them before a defined deadline, and resist looking at any more new shiny objects.

Udacity: Any resources that were of particular help to you?

Tze-Ping: The course materials are my go-to for technical problems. If I can't find the answers, the people in the forums and slack are very helpful too.

I also found out that I am terrible at UI/UX design! I spent way too much time moving things around in constraint layout, changing from check boxes to slide switches, changing color combination etc, and nothing would work. To help myself, I used https://www.materialpalette.com/ for choosing colors and the Image Asset Studio in Android Studio to create custom icons.

Thank you, Tze-Ping!

I had the basic code up and running but I was not too happy with it. It needed a better UI and most importantly be able to work well with low or no bandwidth. GWG came along. I used IndexedDB and Cache API to make the app offline first. In addition, I revamped it with ES6 features using promises (no more callbacks!). This is what you see right now.

Udacity: What resources did you find useful when doing this project?

Tanya: The resources that I found most helpful were the PWA labs. Together with the course materials, they provide everything you need to know about PWA apps. https://developers.google.com/web/ilt/pwa/

Udacity: What were your biggest lessons learned / biggest takeaways now that this project is completed?

Tanya: I can think of two lessons learned - one is that even if something appears scary and believe me indexeddb does - if you chip away at it it becomes easier. The other lesson I learned is the importance of encapsulation. I did not know what that was, but if you look at my code in script.js you will see the variable idb - it encapsulates methods to get and set data. I thought that was cool and only recently learned what to call it. Usually academic courses teach you theory and then if you are lucky you get to see it in practice at some point. Udacity helps self motivated learners to learn the value of theory through practice. Which is neat.

Udacity: Can you tell us about the other Udacity students who contributed to this project?

Tanya: The other students in this course have been awesome and I am in two open source projects with them. The #women_techmakers are an incredible team (Mappa) and it has been a pleasure to work with them. The Navi team is also terrific and a special shoutout to the team lead Bryan who goes out of his way to recruit newbies and help them out. However I worked on this project on my own. The topic was personal and I wanted it to reflect my own personal vision. Which I did. Now I have now opened it up and hope I get some great contributors to work with as I am a new devotee of open source - something I would never have experienced without Udacity!

Important links:

github: https://github.com/tanyagupta/offline-uscitizenship-flashcards

live demo: https://tanyagupta.github.io/citi-app-demo/index.html

wiki: https://github.com/tanyagupta/offline-uscitizenship-flashcards/wiki

forum: https://discussions.udacity.com/t/introducing-project-us-citizenship-flashcards-a-resource-for-prospective-us-citizens/644236

medium article: https://medium.com/@tanyagupta/a-super-simple-progressive-spa-using-indexeddb-and-cache-api-that-anyone-can-build-in-a-few-hours-85bcb3f6e0ed

Mac's app called "Simple Shift - Shift Coverage Made Simple" is an all-in-one app to help you save money for goals while covering shifts from work.

You start off by adding the name and amount of your goal when you first open the app. Whenever someone asks you to cover a shift simply put in the date and how many hours you will be working that day and tap "Get Pay!". Simple Shift will then calculate how much you will make and tell you how much closer you will be to your goal, easy and simple!

The Simple Shift app from Mac Real Studios is available in the Google Play store for FREE. Install it today!

Udacity: How did you come up with the idea for your app?

Mac: The thought behind Simple Shift came over time vs all at once. I initially was just challenging myself to develop and publish an app, and I wanted to create something that I would use. That was usually calculating how much I would make in a set period. As I learned more throughout the course I was then able to improve my app little by little. After finishing with the course not only did I learn a great deal of info but there were also two things that I learned about myself: That I want to help people grow financially and learning Android development will help me achieve that goal. When I first downloaded my app from the Google Play Store I felt like a crazy magician because I could sketch something on paper and then go create it.

Udacity: How did you come to Udacity and what's next for you?

Mac: I can’t remember where I first seen Udacity, but it is honestly the best thing that has ever happened. Seeing the email about Grow with Google, making it to the first stage, and even completing the Simple Shift app has motivated me to work harder to make my dreams come true. I’m currently working on an enhanced shift tracking app that Simple Shift will eventually become a part of.