Grants High School (50)/Interim Report

Interim Report
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_interim1112.php?team_id=50

The problem that our team is trying to solve is an app that, when certain inputs are out into said app, will give you the name of the bridge that most closely, and is proportional, to a certain type of bridge that already exists (e.g. Truss, Arch, Beam, etc.). We will solve this problem by using Xcode to create an app on the Apple iPad and Apple iPhone. It will start of very basic. There will be a page where the person using the app will put in some inputs, such as, but not limited to, distance from point A to point B, elevation between the ground and the bridge, traffic (people, cars, semi-trucks, etc.), and how much traffic per day. The app will then produce to you the name of a certain bridge that closely matches and is proportional to the inputs you put in. So far we have been stumped on Xcode. We have had a couple meetings with Peter Yanke about our teamwork ethics. We have truly improved on our teamwork and are going to receive help on Xcode. Also we have started research on certain bridges such as the truss, suspension, arch, beam, etc., and we have started researching the codes for bridges here in New Mexico. Lastly, we have found an app already in the app store that has information on multiple bridges that could come in use for our efforts. The results we expect to get are a working app that, when inputs are given, will produce the name of the bridge you should build according to your inputted information. Also, we hope to get a nice setup for our board including research and information on bridges. Lastly, we hope to make a good HTML representation of our project, and we would like to get our team 100% functional again. We have this report short because it did take us a while for our team to get fully functional and good with the communication part of teamwork. We have had some rough times but are getting over them and we are working towards a fully functional team. We know that we can make this project work and this team. We are ecstatic to be in this project and will work our best to perfect it. Lastly, we will discuss among the team about possibly switching the language to Java.

Interim Comments
 David Rogers Lead of the Scalable Data Analysis and Visualization Group at Sandia National Laboratories

Hi. Sounds like you've made nice progress since your initial project definition, and I think the app you describe could be quite interesting. I appreciate the difficulties you describe in getting a team to work together - often that's the hardest part of these projects.

At this point, I'd encourage you to work on an app that's the simplest possible that meets your goals of inputting some data and getting a bridge design that solves your problem.

I see that you're very passionate about iOS and the app store, but it might be a good idea to implement something much simpler - something that's not an app - that would serve as a prototype for the app. Learning how to create, publish and distribute an app through the App Store is a project in and of itself, and it could consume all your time if you're not careful.

Nice work on the citations - lots of people neglect that, and it's definitely something that the judges need to see in the final project.

Keep at it, keep it simple, and keep writing code! Good luck!