Saratoga InvenTeam

3B February 12 Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 17:55:00 +0000

We began to plan our presentation to Marc DeNofio and the software developers. Additionally, we practiced our presentation and divided the slides amongst ourselves, based on our levels of expertise. Our presentation is Wednesday at 3:30, so we will continue practicing and refining our presentation next class. Furthermore, members of EYE and EDD are meeting with website developers tomorrow to remake our blog and increase information accessibility.

Jillian Zick

3B January 16 Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 17:52:00 +0000

Today was another working period for the group. More progress was made towards the messaging system, as well as for the deployment setups. The group also continued to look for possible fundraisers.

Nathaniel Greene

January 11 Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 17:50:00 +0000

Today our coding group has continued to work on creating a messaging system for the Team Rubicon application and website. We have successfully sent and received messages using the Twilio coding framework. Our fundraising group is continuing to come up with ideas for raising money to support the class while the Outreach group has continued to reach out to specialists that could assist our project. Other members of our team have looked for alternatives to Twilio that would better suit our project. Additionally, our fearless leader is working on creating a cross platform gap that will bring our work into a phone app.

Brian Chmiel

3B 5, 10, And 15 Week Goals

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 16:54:00 +0000

There are two major overarching goals that I want to achieve throughout the rest of the time in EDD. I first want to, obviously, produce a product which Team Rubicon could possibly implement. Secondly, I want to work with each student to help achieve their individual goals and bring about a sense of accomplishment in the class. Beyond that I have listed goals for 5, 10, and 15 weeks from this day.

5 weeks (February 12th)

Now that the class is getting into the project and the routine of working towards developing/getting help for the app I have several goals that I hope can be achieved by the end of the 5 week period.

Have programming research/prototyping completed: Through the five weeks, I will work with any students who wishes to finish tutorials and get every person who wants to take part in the app development on track to make a meaningful impact on the development. This means that each person has some knowledge in the aspect of the app that they will be in charge of developing. After the five week period I am hoping that I can help get each student to a spot where they are familiar with their aspect of the app and are able to replicate their work in the final project.
Have an outline for the final app project: As members of the app development group continue to work on prototyping and testing, I will work closely with each member to outline how their aspect of the app will be implemented in the final project. This would include documentation of current prototypes, and brainstorming of how to incorporate each aspect of the app into one homogenous product.
Have solid communication with professionals: Many of the students not taking part directly with the app development are still making huge strides in completing this project by contacting professions in the field. I will work with these individuals to identify, and get in contact with these professions who could help us accomplish our goal. This would include contact through email, as well as hopefully some video chat conversations.
Work with team members to complete individual goals: One of the major goals is that individuals are gaining for their experience in EDD. Keeping that in mind, I hope to work with each member individual to help them achieve their 5 week goals and beyond. This will be a constant effort to have each person know that they have made a meaningful impact on the project as a whole.

10 weeks (March 19th)

The 10 week mark represents a critical time in achieving the goal of producing an app for Team Rubicon. At this point the group should be well into the creation of the final product and/or communication with outside resources who may be able to complete the app. At this point, several of the major features should already be accomplished in the final app and we should be well on our way to finishing the project. With that in mind, I have laid out the following goals.

Have each member of the development team finalizing the app: By the end of the 10 week period, I plan that each member of the app development team is working towards finalizing their aspect of the app. This would include documentation, as well as group discussions on the progress made over all. During this time, I plan to be relying heavily on Trello and Slack to have the individuals keeping on target to finish this project.
Regular code reviews: One of the most important parts on any successful app development project is the constant review of the code produced. In order to complete a coherent app, we must all take it upon ourselves to discuss the code we produce as well as the approach we are taking. It will be my responsibility to make sure these code reviews take place and that each member of the programming team is keeping up with the development of the app as a whole.
Keeping professionals up-to-date and part of the project: In order to be most successful, we must make sure to keep professionals part of our engineering process. This would include regular emailing with updates on progress, video calls detailing issues we may be dealing with, and keeping the blog up-to-date with progress. All this could allow us the potential to have outside experts help produce the best possible app for Team Rubicon.
Clear vision of the finish line: Team Rubicon deserves the best possible app that we could provide for them. The best way to ensure that we are providing the best iis by keeping our goals in mind. During the entire project, but most importantly during the completion of the final project, I will make sure that we are meeting the needs of Team Rubicon, not just making another communication tool.

15 weeks (April 16th)

The 15 week mark represents where our project could be meet with success or failure. If by the 15 week period we are not in the testing/finalization period then the likelihood of producing a quality product is close to zero. This time is generally busy for seniors already so we must keep that in mind when considering what needs to be accomplished in EDD.

Testing/Finalizing App: One of the biggest part of any large technical project is the fine tuning and adjustments made after testing. Even with perfect planning it is likely that changes will have to be made based on testing. My goal is to have clearly outlined a testing procedure to put the application through, to best represent success for Team Rubicon. This testing outline will allow us to test the success of the application and make the adjustments needed.
Preliminary Presentation to Team Rubicon: Throughout the project we will be keeping in contact with Team Rubicon, validating the steps we are taking in the app development. This presentation will be a complete rundown of where the app currently is. It will highlight the major features Team Rubicon needs as well as outline how the app will be further developed. This will be the final change to make any adjustments as well as validate the app in its entirety.
EDD is left better then we entered it: EDD has been successful thanks to the previous classes that came before us. We would not be able to approach professionals in the field, or have as much money as we do, if it were not for the past EDD classes. I want to ensure that the next years of EDD will be as successful as possible. By the end of the 10 week period I hope that as a team we will have run several successful fundraiser projects as well as make professional contacts that future students could hopefully benefit from.
Team Reflection: After the 15 week period is over, I would like to sit down with each member and discuss the success and failures that they have viewed through the year. The goal would be to see if any changes could be made in the last few weeks for each student to come away with a personal accomplishment as well as document successes and failures for next years EDD. This would encapsulate both this goal as well as the previous one as being able to provide a stepping stone for next years EDD class is a success itself. I would like to work with the class to compile a list of suggestions that we would be able to pass down to the next class so that they may start out just a little bit ahead of where we started.

These goals may seem far off, but they will come much faster than we expect. I will do everything within my ability to reach these goals as I belief, the accomplishment of each goal will allow our class to succeed in producing a meaningful addition to Team Rubicon’s efforts around the country.

Collin Bolles

Project Manager

3B January 5 Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 17:46:00 +0000

We have started our initial coding, and we successfully sent a text message using our new program. Additionally, the Public Relations and Outreach team has begun to contact software engineering experts at Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp to supplement our coding and help answer any questions. Moving forward, we plan to contact Marc and present our application to Team Rubicon COOs and Facebook engineers. Additionally, the Fundraising group is working on coming up with ideas of things to sell, so we can support both ourselves and future classes.

Jillian Zick

3B December 6 Blog Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 01:40:00 +0000

Much has happened over the past two classes. After splitting into groups, we got a basic wire-frame laid out, and the programming team downloaded applications to begin basic work. Additionally, Collin Bolles, Renee Banagan, Stella Haley, and Jillian Zick met with Marc DeNofio (the communications manager of Team Rubicon) on December 5th to discuss the project. He elucidated the nature of the problem for us- Team Rubicon's main issues lie in slow communication, text disorganization, and lack of battery life on their phones. Therefore, our application must facilitate effective and simple communication while only using a small portion of the battery. It is very likely that we will not have a hardware-based portion in this project, but if the project begins to go in that direction, we will adjust accordingly.

Jillian Zick

Figure 1: A typical team meeting, gathered around
a table to facilitate discussion

Figure 2: A team member beginning to code

Figure 3: An engineers' notebook page detailing
the meeting with Marc DeNofio

3B November 28 Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 01:34:00 +0000

Today we worked on refining our problem definition. Since it is vital that the entire class participate in our project, we made sure that everyone had a comprehensive understanding of the issue at hand. We also divided into smaller groups to tackle our respective sections of the problem; these included an application design group, a software group, a hardware group, and a presentation group. The application design group began to create a user-friendly application for volunteer use, while the software group worked on the schematics of the code itself. The hardware group focused on the "Hub" research (a device for providing phone power and storage to volunteers in the field), and the presentation group began creating presentations for Team Rubicon COOs and Facebook engineers (to introduce them to our problem and ask for assistance).

Jillian Zick

Figure 1. The Software Team: (from left) Gavin Burns, Nate Green (behind),
Eric Simonetti, Collin Bolles, Derek Bruce, and Dan Mattison

Figure 2. The Application Design Team: (from left) Amanda Davis, Caitlin Leonowicz,
Renee Banagan, and Jillian Zick (not pictured)

3B November 17 Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 01:36:00 +0000

During this class, we discussed our goals for the project, refined our elevator pitch, and split into groups based on interest. One group focused on brainstorming initial software design, and the other reached out to Marc and set a date to present our pitch. In addition to this, we plan to do additional research about the software we're developing and contact more experts for help. Next class, we are going to Skype with Marc and refine our problem statement as needed; hopefully, he will present our statement to the CEOs of Team Rubicon in the following days.

Jillian Zick

November 15 Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Sun, 19 Nov 2017 20:01:00 +0000

Last class was spent finalizing and presenting our elevator pitches. We ended up taking what we believed were the best aspects from each elevator pitch, and we worked on condensing the pitch into the 45 second range. Other than the elevator pitch, we began talking about what the volunteer organization software would ideally include when it is finished. We concluded we would like to include the current status of volunteers (deployed or not deployed and how recently they were deployed), a list of their skill sets, an update for volunteers about a crisis, and a preemptive alert to a volunteer if it was a possibility for them to be deployed. Lastly, we agreed to finalize any elevator pitch changes and prepared to have a meeting with Marc in a few classes. Any ideas we have for the software design will be talked about with Marc and he will let us know what he believes is necessary or helpful.

Jacob R.

November 8 Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Fri, 10 Nov 2017 22:07:00 +0000

Class 3B is taking big steps forward. This class we started analyzing the information that Team Rubicon provided. We split into two teams, with one team focused on what competitors are doing when it comes to the volunteer organization. The other team focused on creating a list of criteria that our product should meet in order for it to be most useful to the client. We hope to have a finalized problem statement to present to Team Rubicon soon.

Collin Bolles
Project Manager

Block 3B Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jillian Zick) — Fri, 10 Nov 2017 22:01:00 +0000

Over the past two months, we've been working on developing the project that we want to tackle this year. At the end of October, we narrowed our final decisions down to a Smart Home development system, an at-home energy producing unit, and drone-based disaster relief. We ended up choosing disaster relief, mostly because it's a multi-faceted problem and it was popular among our class. Our main idea was to use drones to gather information about disasters in real time, but after discussing the nature of disasters with an expert, we realized that they didn't need additional information; rather, they needed a way to contact and deploy first responders. This expert is a part of Team Rubicon, an organization dedicated to providing disaster response through the use of veteran volunteers. By connecting the CEOs of Team Rubicon, private companies and local citizens, and the volunteers themselves, we will expedite the disaster response process and save lives. With the amount of natural disasters increasing per year, it is imperative that we develop a system to maximize Team Rubicon's efficiency.

Jillian Zick
Public Communications

An Overdue Update from 4B

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 15 May 2017 02:43:00 +0000

Block 4B is making steady progress in their project. The web app is coming along, a basic working prototype exists. The contact committee has been contacting sleep centers to inquire about the possibility of conducting a sleep study. Students also designed web pages which can be seen below.

This is the home page. Clients can sign in from here to view their driver’s sleeping record.

This is an overview of a client’s employee page. All the drivers belonging to a firm will be visible in this list.

This is an example of an employee profile. Clients will be able to view their employees profile from this page after signing in.

Working Web App!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 17:19:00 +0000

4B has exciting news! The back-end coding group created a working web app that utilizes Fitbit OAuth2 authorization. This means we can access data from a Fitbit watch! The visual component of the Website is nearing completion, 4B voted on a company logo, and progress was made on the midyear presentation.

4B's Upcoming Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 17:48:00 +0000

4B spent the last week developing the web app and the website that will host the web app. Due to school closures the team only met once last week. 4B will have a presentation in the next two weeks to share their progress with either a member of the school administration or a member of the school board. The aesthetic component of the website is scheduled to be completed by the end of the next meeting. The web app group is also making progress, and scheduled another meeting with a local programmer to receive guidance.

4B Update, 3-6-17 by Gavin Hicks

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 11:45:00 +0000

Today’s EDD class meeting took place on the 6th of February. In the beginning of the block, the class had a brief discussion regarding stickers and other fundraising opportunities. After the class broke into the groups and continued to work on individual tasks. The data group continued working the report regarding the number of deaths and cost of accidents. The design group decided on website cosmetics and possible logo designs. The coding group worked on converting the Fitbit API into ruby on rails, a coding language used to create the web page for the class. -Gavin Hicks

4B update, 3-2-17

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Mar 2017 22:58:00 +0000

Class 4B met on Thursday March 2^nd. The class split into several groups and worked for the entirety of the class. One group is coding the web app layout using Ruby on Rails. Another group is using Justinmind to create the visual component of the website. A third group is designing the overall page schematic of the website, making sure to maximize functionality and efficiency.

4B's Web App Progress, By Matt LaRosa

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 23:13:00 +0000

For the first half of Block 4B’s meeting on February 28^th, the class discussed plans for what the website and web application will look like and plans for actually making it. During the second half, the class broke into their groups. The data group continued to go through data for their report. The design group brainstormed sketches for the appearance of the website. The visual aspect of the website will most likely be designed on “Justinmind”, a website that enables web page creation without having to code the visual components in HTML. The coding group is working on downloading programs for making the server. The coding group is now primarily working in Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

-Matt LaRosa

4B Web App Progress, by Sophie Smith

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 23:30:00 +0000

Over the break, a couple members of the programming group met with multiple software engineers to discuss web application development. Currently, the plan is to develop a web app which accesses Fitbit sleep data and displays that information to the user on a website. Therefore, the group realized they needed to learn the best tools and approach to implementing this idea. Throughout this week, members of the group learned how to access Fitbit data, constructed a basic diagram displaying functionality for the web application components, and completed introductory courses in programming in Ruby and using Ruby on Rails on Codecademy. Ruby on Rails was decided as the best approach to developing the web app and the members began to install the appropriate files to progress with this step. The next steps for this group are to continue learning more about Ruby on Rails in order to develop the backend side of the web application and also to begin laying out the website using a wireframe program in order to determine the functionality of various pages and features. -Sophie Smith

4B Data Analysis Report, By Hayden Meaney

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 22:55:00 +0000

The data analysis group studied the trend of the number of fatigue-related trucking accidents. We analyzed raw data from a survey taken on trucking accidents between 2001 and 2009. The group found the percent of accidents caused by fatigue for each year and created a linear regression analysis. 2008 is an outlier and therefore it was omitted from the next scatterplot we created, which can be seen below. The new scatterplot has a downward linear trend line which could perhaps be accounted for by the implementation of electronic log books. However, the correlation is not strong and there is still work to be done to reduce fatigue-related trucking accidents. Based on this trend line, we extrapolated the data for predicted crashes for this year. A margin of error was calculated for each year described above and then the average margin of error was calculated. Based on the average margin of error and the linear trend line, we calculated between 28,110 and 40,249 deadly trucking accidents caused by fatigue for this year. This number was calculated based on an estimate population size of 2 million commercial truckers on the road this year.

We also compared the Fitbit Flex 2 and Jawbone UP3. We had each team member wear both devices on opposite wrists for two nights. We then recorded the time slept for the Fitbit, UP3 and the time each person fell asleep and woke up, which was based on alarms and recorded bed-times. We then compared the accuracy of both devices. The results are shown below. The Fitbit is clearly more accurate.

-Hayden Meaney

4B, 2-17-17

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 18 Feb 2017 22:06:00 +0000

Class 4B last met on Friday the 17th of February. The class will not meet this coming week as school is out for February break. Project Manager Matt and PR Person Chris spent the majority of class meeting with individual team members to discuss short-term goals and progress mad since the last one-on-one meeting. The html group continued to work on creating a website. Their group will include more members soon; several team members are tasked with learning html over break. The web app group scheduled a meeting with a mentor over the break in order to discuss how to best go about creating the web app. The data analysis group is preparing a report to present to the class. 4B is on schedule and moving into the prototyping phase of their project.

4B update, 2-15-17

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 17:29:00 +0000

At their last meeting, Class 4B began class by responding to an email from Seeing Machines, specifically Guardian, the branch of Seeing Machines that deals with trucking accidents caused by drowsiness. Guardian uses face tracking algorithms to monitor driver fatigue. 4B asked their team questions about how they went about creating their web application, how they tested their product’s effectiveness, and how they market their product to trucking companies. After brainstorming questions for the email response, 4B broke into smaller groups. Project manager Matt Chmiel and Jack Tanny both worked on the email response. The html group continued working on creating a website. The second coding group is researching how to create a web application. The data analysis group continued to look through spreadsheets and worked on a report to present to the class.

4B Update 2-13-17, by Matt LaRosa

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 23:57:00 +0000

Block 4B’s meeting on February 13th was shorter than usual due to a 2-hour delay. The survey group is compiling a survey to ask civilians. They are hoping to start distributing them by the next meeting. The data group is working on a report concerning the crash spreadsheets sent to them by an actuary. One of the programming groups has finished learning html on Codecademy and is working on making the project’s website in html. They are also responding to an email from a professional programmer and local Saratoga resident.
-Matt LaRosa

Class 4B update by Meg Varcoe

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 20:07:00 +0000

Block 4B only met once for a full meeting this past week due to school cancellations and school functions. In order to support the claim that sleep induced trucking accidents are an issue, we have created an anonymous survey directed towards both commercial drivers and civilian drivers. Some of the questions are: how many accidents have they been in? How many were sleep induced? And finally, in their opinion, is falling asleep while driving a pressing issue? Currently, two trucking companies have agreed to administer the survey. We will continue to contact more companies to help further support our problem statement. As for the civilian drivers, we will have a random group complete the survey. By having both civilian and commercial drivers take the survey we will be able to see how the issue impacts drivers differently. The data analysis group is reviewing spreadsheets sent to them by an actuary. These spreadsheets contain information on big-rig truck accidents from several years. From these spreadsheets, they hope to calculate the cost benefits and potential lives saved by preventing accidents.
-Megan Varcoe

Class 2B update- 2/7/17

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 15:22:00 +0000

Hello! The last month has been a busy time for class 2B. In the past few weeks we have decided to pursue another pathway with our project. The issues we were facing with our previous approach seemed too great to tackle, given both our resources, and our time frame; as a result we have decided to pursue an app/website based approach. We recently held a focus group with local cyclists in order to pick out our feature set, and are currently posting polls to web forums. We hope this app will be able to provide cyclists with the safest possible routes using an algorithm which will consider traffic data and user feedback. We would greatly appreciate your help, please take our poll, which can be found here. Thank you!

Sincerely,
2B

2-1-17; 4B Update

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 03 Feb 2017 11:23:00 +0000

Class 4B continued to work in their smaller groups. The coding group is now broken into three sections. One group is learning “HTML” language on Codecademy in order to design a website for the Fitbit app to link to. Another group is coding the actual app in Android Studio. Android Studio is coded in “Java”, which means the first version of the app will be tested only on Samsung phones as apple products work on a type of “R” language. The last group is researching options for a database web hosting service, as the website should store data sent to it from the Fitbit app. The data analysis group is looking through an extensive big-rig crash spreadsheet in order to find further correlations between fatigue and crashes, as well as calculating potential benefits, costs and lives saved, of reducing these types of crashes.