Specialist Technical Inquiry - Online Journal

Merry Christmas! Progress has unfortunately been pretty stagnant in the app-development front, but plod onwards I must, so here's the refined app design as per the feedback from the lecturers.  Wireflow for the new UI Main three tabs  The main page will first ask users to pair the app with the Bluetooth toy module. The first tab that will open after this will be the recording page, where the recordings will be saved automatically to the internal storage in the phone. "Tracks" tab The Tracks tab, where users can play, pause, and delete tracks, as well as choose which tracks to upload onto the toy module. Sleep tab The sleep tab has been simplified to switching the toy module to a lullaby mode, with a timer which can be cancelled if you just click on the middle button again. References: Android Wear design guidelines. (2017). Color - Style - Android Wear design guidelines. [online] Available at: https://designguidelines.withgoogle.c...

Since this app/toy is meant to be targeted at children, I figured that a cute mascot would be great to add to the app, and also serve as the app's icon. Moodboard I decided on a simple, chalky/sketchy sort of aesthetic, with bright, primary colours and a smiling expression. I managed to find some free photoshop brush resources and got to work. Early drafts As you can probably tell, I was deciding between either a teddy-bear-like design, or something which was vaguely bunny-like. But in the end, it was the blue cloud thing that I chose in the end. This decision was justified by the fact that this toy module is meant to be able to be attached to many different types of plush toys, and thus it made sense to have an icon that was more vague and could kind of represent the "soul" of the toy.  "Neutral", "Singing", and "Asleep" drafts I decided to call this little mascot character "Ami", partially because the name of...

In the effort to feel productive while putting off the soul-draining exploration into Android Studio, I decided to work on the user interface for the app first, to at least have a solid direction of what I'm planning to do. I'll dedicate another post on exploring the icon/mascot design. This was the first design for the app, where there are three main bottom tabs which serve as the main form of navigation. The three pages are "Record", "Home", and "Tracks". Clicking the "Sleep" button on the "Home" page takes the user to a different section, which has its own "Record" and "Tracks" page. This allows users to be able to record and upload two different sets of voice recordings for the two different modes that the toy module offers. After discussing with Chia Yeh and Lin Yew during the last lesson, however, Chia Yeh pointed out the potential for confusion with this particular user flow, and suggested that I t...

After receiving the HC-06 module, I decided to try my hand in connecting things together and testing out to see how I could establish a Bluetooth connection. Following this tutorial , this is what I managed to piece together. The diagram provided by the tutorial I downloaded the app provided in the tutorial, and it works! I didn't manage to take a video of the LED responding to my phone turning it on and off, because my phone was busy being the remote. But it's a relief to see that the very basic sending of binary data is achievable using these tools. One important point to note is that I realised I was unable to upload the Arduino code into the Arduino board while the Bluetooth module was connected. This was later explained by Ron to be due to the fact that the Bluetooth utilises the 0 and 1 digital pins, called the RX and TX pins, to send the signals, and this also happens to be the same pins through which the code is sent through. It's a bit of a pain having...

Yay I'm so excited. The parts from Robotedu have arrived! One unfortunate thing you might have noticed is that I bought the wrong sized battery holder :p I'm hoping I can get the right part from the lab, or I'll need to buy another. The rest of the post will just be images of the actual things I got. They all seem to work more or less. The part came unsoldered, I soldered it together myself. Solder skill +5 

With the deadlines fast approaching, I figured I should try to take advantage of the year end sales to try to purchase the items I need at a possibly lower price. The first set of purchases are from Lelong.my, from the seller Robotedu. These are primarily Arduino-related products for the module.  1. HC-06 Bluetooth Module - RM 15.00 This component was mentioned in a previous blog post, and will function as the part that will connect my Arduino board with the android app. 2. Arduino Nano - RM 12.50 This will hopefully function as my main Arduino board to run the whole module in a smaller size compared to the Arduino Uno. 3. Arduino SPI ICSP interface Micro SD Card Adapter Reader Module - RM 5.90 This micro SD card reader will function as my main file storage component 4. 4ohm Loud Speaker - RM 6.90 They're speakers. They will function as speakers. Make sounds. Yay. 5. Battery holder - RM 2.50 6. LC 14500 3.7v 1300mah Li-ion Rechargeable Lithium B...

This is the first tutorial that I started with, which helped with the step-by-step when it comes to downloading and installing Android Studio and Android SDK. The reason I decided to explore Android Studio, which I'm completely unfamiliar with, is because I'm not sure how to access the permissions I need with Unity. I'm also hoping that Android Studio will have more relevant existing tutorials that can help me out. After that tutorial, the next one which I tried out is this one Following that tutorial, I managed to create my first basic android app! All it does is send a string of text from one page to another though, and I'm having trouble understanding what parts do what. One current frustration is that tutorials for android seem to be either "basics!" which kind of all teach the same things (downloading, basic functions), or it's a tutorial that assumes that you already know what you're doing. I'm hoping I'll be able to find bett...