Project Spotlight: GPS and Board Games

Our LITAS participants are hard at work on their projects for the Technology Showcase! This unique event allows the girls to apply their coding skills to design and develop a game, app, or animation.

The projects range from products created to solve medical problems, to apps for consumer convenience and entertainment. All the girls are especially excited to learn how to package their apps and put them up on the Google Play store!

I will be giving you a quick preview of the LITAS projects on my blog in the next few weeks. Today, let’s look at the work of Bianca (7th Grade) and Samantha (6th grade).

Explore through GPS- Bianca (7th Grade)

• What it Does: Gives Users Directions to Random, Interesting Location nearby
• Based on Time Availability, Traffic Forecast, etc.
• Tools: AppInventor and Google Maps

Have you ever found yourself completely bored?Ever thought that you don’t know the city you’ve lived in for twenty years nearly as well as you ought to? Tired of being a typical tourist? If you have a craving for adventure, Bianca’s app is the one for you! Her program gives you directions to a random, interesting location nearby. As Bianca explains, “What I hope to accomplish is an app that will take a person to new locations they have not yet discovered and a fun activity to do when in foreign places with excess time on [their] hands.” Bianca plans to use AppInventor, which she learned through LITAS, and Google Maps for her project. The final release of the app will take into account traffic, recommendations from apps like Yelp, and crime data. I can’t wait until this is available for download!

Board Game Planet- Samantha (6th Grade)

• What it Does: Compete with your friends to make it to the end of the Board
• Making Education Fun- Earn Prizes while learning about Different Topics
• Tools: AppInventor and MIT Scratch

Samantha’s app brings the traditional board game into the digital world for a new generation to enjoy. Kids enter the world of “Gamelandia” where they compete with their friends in a board game. The board games can even be designed to be educational, teaching kids about reading or science! As Samantha says about her app, “Each turn, you could roll a pair of dice and move accordingly, draw a card, gain a level, fight a monster or your friend, [and] win.” As for the tools, she says she would “like to use scratch, or maybe a different drawing app, to make the sets and sprites.” and she plans to use AppInventor for the coding. One thing that really sticks out to me as a user is the convenience of a digital board game. No more losing pieces under the sofa or rug!

These are only two examples of the many projects currently going on in LITAS. Stay tuned for more!