So, I didn’t get my first-choice project. But that’s okay, ya know. I got the next best thing—my second choice. It’s a mobile companion app for a smart recycling bin. The bin will only open when the app says it’s okay, and the app will ask the user to take a picture of their (potentially) recyclable item. Then a magical machine-learned model will determine if the item is good to go or a trash-bound foe.
This project is quite exciting for me for a few reasons. Firstly, it allows me to practice my mobile dev skills, and I really like developing mobile-y. Not while on the go, but you get what I mean, right? Seriously though, I’ve been drawn to making apps since before I started CS classes. I am legally blind, and making accessible apps is one of my goals. Before formal classes, I followed YouTube tutorials to make Xamarin Forms apps, but last quarter I took a mobile development course and loved it. That class used the Flutter SDK, and I found it much more intuitive and easy-to-use than Xamarin Forms. So that’s why we decided to use Flutter on this project. The widget design and Dart language is how my brain wants to organize the code, rather than having to design the UI in a separate language (XAML) and use bindings to connect it to C#.
Secondly, I am really happy with my team. Travis is my teammate, and he will be taking on most of the backend/ML responsibilities. He is really easy to work with and has delivered on all his promises so far. Plus, he’s very knowledgable when it comes to the professional side of the project. Awesome dude. We’re thinking about using TensorFlow or PyTorch (still haven’t decided yet) because they seem to be the most popular and beginner-friendly frameworks. TensorFlow is a bit trickier to learn, but it’s used by more industry projects and has support for more languages/systems. PyTorch is apparently easier to pick up. But Travis will decide what he will use soon, and I’ll try my best to learn it so I can help out.
Lastly, this project is really exciting because Travis and I get to work with an industry professional, Greg, who is our Project Mentor. Greg is donating his time to provide guidance and requirements for our app. He wants us to prototype his idea for the smart recycling bin. I can’t express enough how great of an opportunity this is for me. I have very little real-world work experience, so getting the chance to test drive this software engineering project from start to finish is invaluable and less stressful.
Thanks for reading. I’m really looking forward to getting this project underway. Travis and I have completed the project plan, and now we are moving into the research phase. I’ll keep you posted on the development progress. For now, I hope all your dreams and IDEs are free of red squigglies!
Good night.
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