If you have been reading my other recent blog posts then you know that school ended on Friday. This means that we are finishing up the final projects of the year, and maker’s final project is Blue Sky. In Blue Sky, we are given time to solve a problem that we have in our lives. As we begin making this solution we have to follow the LAUNCH cycle. The launch cycle is basically a cycle to organize your ideas so that it is easier to create the solution.
L is the first step in the LAUNCH cycle, and it stands for LOOK, LISTEN, AND LEARN. In this part we would write down any problems that we would want solving. The goal of the L Section was for awareness. Once we had found some problems we would pick one of those problems to solve. After that we moved onto researching how we could solve that problem. Once we had finished some preliminary research we wrote a How Might We. A How Might We is just a paragraph on how and what we are going to be creating.
A is the next step of the LAUNCH journal. A is all about asking questions. We would fill out our own need to know chart with any questions we had about Blue Sky, our project, or anything in general.
Once we had finished that we moved into writing a Pitch Form. This was basically a way to show the teachers what we were going to be making or accomplishing. It was all about why were doing this, what we will be researching to complete this task, and what our plan was to create the project.
U, the next step, is all about Understanding the Problem or Process. We would make Secondary and Primary researching. My primary research was I interviewed somebody from Essential Designs, an app-designing company with a headquarters in Vancouver. I asked them questions about what they look into to make and design an app, how long it normally takes, and what they focus on the most. For my secondary research I downloaded a ton or fitness app and saw what they focused in, and how they were designed, what info they needed, and other stuff like that.
Navigating Ideas, the next step, is all about organizing your ideas and deciding in how you will make each one. I used an app called Post-it to organize my ideas into four categories. I only ended up using the orange and teal ideas because I ran out of time but I would like to go back and try out the other ones.
Creating a Prototype. In this section we were supposed to make three rapid prototypes. Rapid Prototypes are quick Prototypes, like a drawing or a lego model, that isn’t supposed to take too long so that you can make a new one quickly. My three prototypes were all drawings of how my app would look once you activated it. After that we went around and asked people what they thought of my prototypes. I showed one of my basketball coaches, Vik, and he said he liked the idea but I should look from a users point of view. What would I, as the consumer, want to have in this app.
Highlight and Fix, the last step in the launch journal. Highlight is all about feedback. My Live prototype interview was the beginning of that feedback as Vik told me ways I could improve the app. My parents gave me feedback about how the ideas were good, but the actual making of the app looked a little rushed and I could have gone into deeper detail. After that we had to make a burn down chart about how we completed the project.
That pretty much wrapped up the making of the project, now for me to show you what I made. I decided on making an app for fitness called “Tracker Fit”. It is an app that lets people take time in their lives to workout and be healthy. It’s main focus was there was a workout rotation, so one day would be an arm workout, and the next day would be a leg workout so that one part of your body is workout out while the other part is resting. You would get an alert that looks like this every once in a while asking you to add the workout to an empty spot in your calendar so that you can set time aside to workout.
Another part of Tracker Fit is the custom workout. If you want a sports themed workout, like say a soccer workout, then you can create a sports themed workout that would be added to the rotation and would show up every few days. You can also edit the rotation to move certain workouts to different days. The last main part is the healthy tips. This part would give you healthy meals, healthy tips, how much sleep you should be getting etc. Those were the main focuses on my app.
To reflect on this, I would say I left this a little late. I only started really creating in the last week and I think I could have done a much better job if I hasn’t done that. That was the main problem. I was a little confused in what we were doing at the start, and then once I figured it out, I had trouble coming up with an idea for a project. But that was my Blue Sky, I hoped you liked it and I will see you all next year.👋