App is a crowd favourite!
App is a crowd favourite!
October 19, 2015 at 2:52 PM
Our congratulations to Year 13 Computer Science student William Bradley who won the People’s Choice prize at the Brightsparks Awards – ‘New Zealand’s premier showcase for brilliant young minds.’ Brightsparks encourages students to develop their skills in electronics, technology, software and science with an emphasis on thinking ‘beyond the norm’ as well as showing sound, detailed and methodical practice.
‘The best inventions make life easier for the people who use them. While our judges will be looking for evidence of technological sophistication, it's more important that your project works!’
Brightsparks
This year in the Computer Science at the College, each student was required to select a project to work on for the entire year. These projects ranged from creating dynamic websites, content management systems, apps (Android, Android Wear, iPhone, Windows 10), databases, or inventive projects such as creating a home surveillance system or a cat feeder using a raspberry pi.
William’s year-long project was a sophisticated television tracking and managing app for Windows 10, written in C#. William said that he enjoys spending his leisure time watching TV shows from NZ and abroad and he wanted to be able to keep track of them, no matter what time they were on or what network was hosting them. The app he had been using was slow and not universal so he couldn’t use it on his Windows phone. His TVPlan app (free for download - see link below) is the result of a great deal of work. He said, ‘There was a lot of research which was a big challenge for me. I also found it difficult passing variables across pages but with extensive research I made it possible. I really enjoyed designing the pages and adding features to it that I knew I would love to use.’ He hopes others will find it equally useful.
William’s work will gain a total of 16 NCEA Level 3 credits in project management, prototyping and programming. His portfolio will also be submitted for the Technology Scholarship.
The Computer Club and the Python Advanced Club promoted the software category of the Brightsparks competition to its members, and to the Computer Science classes, along with numerous other programming competitions throughout the year. William followed through and submitted his app to the panel and thus emerged as a finalist in the senior software category.
And the future? William hopes that one day he will work for Microsoft!
William’s app can be downloaded by following the link below.
