Monday, January 30, 2017

1-30-17, by Matt LaRosa

Class 4B did not meet last week as school was out for midterms. 4B started their meeting today by sharing their progress in their personal SMART goals at the halfway point in the year. The class then decided to use the Fitbit for the class project. Half of the coding group is researching the Fitbit API to get data to the app that the class is designing. The other half of the coding group is learning HTML code as they plan on making a website for the app. The testing group is continuing to collect sleep data for the Fitbit and organizing the data in a spreadsheet. The fundraising committee is continuing to produce fidget spinners to sell for the class fundraiser. -Matt LaRosa

Thursday, January 19, 2017

4B Progress Update

Class 4B continued working in their respective groups at their last meeting. The coding group continued using Android Studio to code potential user interfaces. They are testing their mini-apps on a virtual emulator, which simulates how the app runs on a phone. The technology testing group now has several nights of sleep data for both the Fitbit and the Jawbone, their findings will be shared soon. The fundraising committee is producing fidget spinners, which the class has already sold several of.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

4B Update, 1-13-17

Class 4B continued to work in small groups at their last class meeting. The coding group familiarized themselves with Android Studio and practiced programming user interfaces. Another group of students worked on designing the aesthetic user interface components of 4B’s app. The final group of students continued to test the Fitbit and Jawbone.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Product Testing- By Meg Varcoe

Within the testing group of our project, we are currently comparing Fitbit to Jawbone to see which product is more accurate at tracking sleep. We are doing this by having six people from the class bring both products home for two nights and sleeping with them on each wrist. Each person will record the estimated time they thought they fell asleep, and when each product said they fell asleep. Also, each person will record when they thought they woke up as well as when the products thought they woke up. By doing this, we can see which product is more accurate based off the user comparing their sleep schedule to the one the products recorded.

We are also conducting a survey targeted towards commercial and civilian drivers. We are asking them basic questions such as: how much sleep they get, how many accidents they’ve been in, and how many accidents were sleep induced. This survey will provide real statistics to base information off when presenting our product, rather than simply getting possibly false information from the internet.

-Megan Varcoe

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

4B Purchases!

Block 4B spent their class meeting on January 9th discussing Jawbone and Fitbit. Fitbit appears to have better Open Source resources. 4B ended up purchasing both and will compare sleep tracking capabilities in the coming weeks. A group of students is also working on coding an app for the Fitbit. The group is currently coding in Android Studio. 4B will keep you posted in the coming weeks.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

4B Update, 1-5-17

Class 4B spent their last meeting conducting research to decide which product, Jawbone or Fitbit, best fits the project requirements. Criteria include accuracy of sleep detection, cost-effectiveness, and available developer resources. Ideally, 4B will purchase one of the two products at their next meeting. PR Person Chris and Project Manager Matt also met with each team member individually and discussed each person’s contributions to the project. The Fundraising Committee is working hard to finish making Fidget Spinners for the class fundraiser. Sales will start this week.

2B update- 1/8/17

Happy 2017 from class 2B! In our first week of the new year, we continued the work we had been doing prior to the holiday break. The building team furthered their work with the camera as a possible sensor. They widened their ability to live stream the video feed from the action cam, and using that input data, tested out some sample programs on OpenCV which were designed to recognize various objects and track motion. We hope to be able to modify these program's code, in order to make a program capable of tracking cars. The fundraising group presented a tentative plan and cost summary for the Corporate Engineering Night fundraiser to administration and they received verbal approval, so now we are simply waiting for paperwork to be completed! More updates soon.

Sincerely,
2B

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Does Fitbit Fit 4B's Needs?

Class 4B researched existing technology that could be utilized to solve the problem of falling asleep while driving pro-actively. Today, 4B shared the findings. Fitbit and Jawbone (fitness and health bracelets worn around the wrist) are currently the two contenders for 4B’s utilizable technology. Both appear to accurately track sleep, although more research will be dedicated to this, and both most importantly have open source code and allow anybody to write their own apps for their respective products. For 4B’s purposes, creating an app compatible with either technology would be a significant component of the current solution being pursued.