Computer science, understood as science of representing and processing data and information, usually supported by digital information systems such as modern computers, is often used in cooperation with different sciences. In fact, informatics support medical science, biology, geology, economics, mathematics and many more by providing technologies, algorithms or patterns toanalyse data. And, last but not least, computer sciences delivers technologies, which help us to improve and simplify our daily lives. In course of that, mobile applications for our smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices became more and more important over the years.The goal of this project is to provide an opportunity for the participants to have a deeper look at the basics and fundamentals of mobile application development and qualify them to develop applications step by step on their own. Therefore, the scope of the provided technologies should be as broad as possible in order to prepare them for different job requirements or practical demands.In class, general structures and basic knowledge of the programming language Java, used for Android and other platforms, such as Arduino or Raspberry PI, is covered. Nevertheless, due to organisational or temporal circumstances, students often lack practical application scenarios.This is where our project kicks in: we want to demonstrate the benefit of mobile application by letting them create their own applications, using an appropriate development environment like Android Studio and providing them in Google Play Store. Over the last years, there has been a different trend besides the classical client-server structure in mobile applications, which follows a much more interactive and decentralized approach: smart home applications. The idea is to control and link different domestic procedures and devices remotely. Heating systems, kitchen equipment, lights or even your washing machine – each device can be operated by smartphones on the fly.Modern platforms, such as Arduino, Raspberry PI or INEMO enable us to query diverse sensor data like temperature, pressure, brightness, acceleration and many more and convert them into user information. The user is able to retrieve these information and interfere in running processes.Hence, this project should provide a deeper look for students in this rather new topic and qualify them to develop applications, which should help us to improve our daily lives. Especially, students have to focus on interfaces in order to guarantee a loss-free exchange of data between different devices like sensors, control units or mobile user devices. By visiting local companies, such as STM in IT, Redhat in CZ, and by cooperation with the University Worms in GER we provide an insight into the technical manufacturing process of these microchips and platforms.At least it is very important for the team that we have developed this EU-APP16 project, at the "interface" of school and worklife to enhance the opprtunities more option for their future life.
Project partners: Berufsbildende Schule Donnersbergkreis (GER, Eisenberg), Zespol Szkol Nr 1 im. Legionow Polskich (POL, Kozience), ITIS Galileo Ferraris (IT, Catania), Stredni prumyslova skola Brno, Purkynova prispevkova organizace (CZ, Brünn). All schools are forms of vocational schools with appropriate information technology education. The project started with the initial meeting in Eisenberg in fall 2016. The students were taught in the essentials of android application development by German teacher and members of Hochschule Worms. Among basic Java programming fundamentals, a workshop on application programming using Android Studio was provided, which featured GUI (graphical user interface) and ‘type & click‘ functionality. With this knowledge in mind, the five international teams started working on their own applications. In the end of the first meeting in Eisenberg, each of them had a working application with small functionality, a GUI and documentation files. The second meeting took place in Catania in spring 2017. All teams brought new ideas and so the functionality of the applications grew bigger and bigger. In addition, the Italian teachers, in cooperation with STM, provided workshops on microcontrollers and sensor measurements. The third meeting in Brno focused on the integration of databases, since most groups‘ apps featured a user directory, messenger or different functionality, which made a database mandatory. Using the database language SQL, the Czech teachers provided workshops on how to connect, send queries and display the results in Java. In addition to all these programming sessions, all groups kept on working on their documentaries in order to guarantee a solid fundament for the very last meeting in Poland. Furthermore, the students had the opportunity to visit one of the most important companies in the Linux universe – Red Hat. The last meeting took place in spring 2018 in Kozienice, Poland and consisted of two major parts – finishing the android apps and using microcontrollers and robotics. Part one required much effort. While the Czech students, the experts in programming, coded all day and night to finish the very last functions of the apps, the rest of the teams worked on documentation, presentation and software tests. For part two, the Polish teachers provided a number of workshops on Arduino microcontrollers, robotics and sensor measurements. One major success was the smog analysis in the city of Warsaw using a microcontroller and smog sensors, executed by a team of students. In the end of the project, all participating students learned a lot about android application development, software engineering, software documentation, distributed systems and international cooperation in computer science. This included the entire process from scratch to the finished product in the end– starting with project management and bringing the first draft to life up to testing and releasing the results in the end. The students faced challenges like the allocating of roles and responsibilities, communication in a foreign language, using new tools, the need of standardization in documentation and coding, the preparation of use cases, testing schemes and proper use of interfaces, which were necessary in order to integrate different devices and techniques. The main products of this project, the five android apps, are very extensive and include many different areas of computer science like software engineering, software testing, database integration, human – computer interaction, data security and graphic modelling. For example, the application ‘Sports Guide’ features GPS integration to get you to the nearest sports club as well as helpful information about rules, costs and famous players of different sports. The ‘BrainStorm’ app lets you add school related questions into a database and offers the possibility to post answers from all over the world. Even more impressive is the application ‘StaySafe’, which will automatically warn you if you physically find yourself near an emergency or any other dangerous situation. In addition, you can test your danger awareness level by completing the integrated multiple choice test. And there’s more – you even get individual evaluation of your answers. From a technical point of view the application ‘Martin The Helping Hand’ is the most powerful of them all, since it combines a web front end, an android application and the integration of microcontrollers to control lights. You can use either website or android app to set your alarm or switch on your lights at home. The students used the knowledge gained during the project to develope a school app – e.g. in Fermany ‘BBS Donn’, that features a news section, which displays important news and dates from a mySQL database, the latest substitute teachers plan, GPS based routing and much more. The android app was just released in Google’s Play Store and makes school life a lot easier for students and teachers.