CSExplore

A Blank Canvas

In the summer of 2020, I participated in an undergraduate research experience at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. As part of the experience, Angeli Amascual , Max Deyo, Hanna Park and I worked on designing an application to engage Hawaii high school students in Computer Science education. We assumed that a mobile application would appeal to high school students and therefore began making mobile prototypes.

Initially, we designed individual wireframe mockups using Figma. Below, there are a few different prototypes I created, which eventually manifested in one of the current iterations. I won’t go into too much detail, but each prototype attempts to appeal to a student not currently interested in Computer Science.

2 Roads Diverged

After the group presented various prototypes, we began making individual apps using Expo, React Native and JavaScript/TypeScript. During this time, I practiced using the Expo and React Native toolchain. I mainly used functional components for this version of the app while using the useState() Hook, rather than making class based components and having to call a constructor for props and state.

You can find the repo of this prototype here. After viewing work done by my other group members, it seemed Angeli and I had similar design principles. We used a lot of graphics rather than text, attempted to reflect Hawaiian themes in the user interface design and made the prototypes similar to role playing games. Going forward, we attempted to combine our designs into one application while Max and Hanna teamed up to produce theirs.

A Whimsical Side

The majority of this project was spent designing the whimsical approach with Angeli. You can see the repo for this application here and a preview of the application here. The app preview works best if you download the Expo mobile app. I drew all of the backgrounds four main areas using an Ipad and Adobe Draw, as well as the faces of the TestBot. I was also tasked with programming the home screen, the TestBot and all the screens for the Town which included the HTML emulator.

Participating in a Virtual Symposium

In addition to creating the application, Angeli, Max, Hanna and I presented our work at the 2020 SURE symposium. This was the second time I’ve presented a research poster but this was my first time doing so virtually. It was not as fun as an in-person symposium but it was able to run smoothly with little technical difficulty.

Below is a screenshot of our poster during our Zoom presentation.

The next step of our project is to carrying out our user evaluation with high school students, to determine if the future of the Whimsical and Professional approaches. Based on those results, the development team can then code more features of the app, link a database and deploy a product available at the Apple App store or Google Play store.

Below is a picture of some participants in our virtual session.