As part of the Study Package for all students on the Level 3
courses at Abingdon and Witney’s Witney Campus there is the opportunity to
attend a 6 week program on Android Application Development. The program focuses
on understanding the structure of the Android Mobile Operating System Apps, a
little about Android’s history and also how to approach the development of an
application for this operating system.
The first run of this program took place in the second
half-term of the 2013/14 year (November to December 2013). The program was full
(12 students) and once they had looked at the basics of Android development the
students split in to small groups to create an application of their choice. The
main result of this first program was the creation of two Android applications;
1)
Text to
Morse Code (Beta) – an application that allows the user to input a sentence
and receive a translation of this sentence in Morse Code. The application is
being developed to include audio and visual feedback through the use of the
in-built device speakers and LEDs. The students have also started to develop
‘quick buttons’ with common phrases that may be useful.
2)
Asteroid
Assault (Beta) – a game where the user tilts their phone/ tablet to control
the movement of the spacecraft and touches buttons on the screen to fire
missiles as the on-coming asteroids. The aim is to destroy the asteroids. The
students are developing the game to include a scoring system and potentially a
ranking system too.
To help students see a result to their work it was decided
to setup a Google Play Store account. This has allowed the students to get
their applications published on to the Google Play Store so that anybody with
an Android compatible device can download the applications and use them.
To help in the testing process for ‘Text to Morse Code (Beta)’
the application was downloaded by students from Public Services courses at the
Witney Campus. The application was used by these students to help learn about
Morse Code as a method of communication.
The students working on these two applications are
continuing to develop them as part of the Android Development Enrichment
program and the versions available on the Google Play Store are updated as
progress is made. The program itself is in the second run and more students are
taking an interest in the topic as it progresses.
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