Last week, our group met up with the sponsor of the project to discuss and clarify requirements. It was then that I found out there was another group who chose the same project as us. One of their members suggested that we combine our groups into one, but after some discussion amongst ourselves, we decided it would be better to keep the groups separate. The biggest reason behind our decision was that the other group wanted to use Swift in order to develop natively for iOS, whereas our group had already decided to use Flutter for its cross-platform compatibility. Although I was looking forward to learning Swift, I think working with a language that our group was familiar with will help produce a more polished application in the end.

This week, we’ve officially started to work on the application, which we’ve renamed to “Doge Parks” (apparently there is already an application called “Paw Parks” on the iOS app store). Hao did most of the heavy lifting and set up the Github repository and required code reviews. He also started working on the backend by creating an authentication system using Firebase. Chris made some design prototypes of the UI, and I’ve started coding the bottom navigation bar and other elements of the UI based on those prototypes. We’ve also conducted a weekly meeting with the sponsor, just to keep him updated on the status of our project. Overall, I’m glad I found a team of like-minded individuals with similar availability. Everyone gets along and works together well. Hope this pace continues until the project is finished!

Outside of class, I’ve been staying busy with my part time job as a web support assistant, my UX class, and my full time job. Honestly, before this term began I was worried that I had bitten off more than I could chew. But after the first 2-3 weeks, I’ve sort of settled into a rhythm and things have been manageable. The web support assistant role has mainly consisted of data entry so far, but it’ll undoubtedly get much busier as we start really focusing on building the new website for Oregon State University. The UX class has a light workload and a lot of the concepts relate to my capstone project, so I’m enjoying it a lot. Work is as hectic as usual but I try to stay focused on my goal of graduating. Just gotta take it one day at a time…