The Reflection by Lu Meng

December 9, 2017

1. What did I learn technically?

   I learned how to build an Android app in Android Studio using Java from the project which I was working on during this semester, which includes how to build the basic foundation of the app, how to use APIs (Google Place, Firebase) in the app, how to test the app, and how to launch the app to the Google Play Store.
   I also learned many things from the lightning talks. For example, if I want to have a special map in my app, I will choose Mapbox; if I want my app to have the function of drawing, I will use 2D Canvas.

2. What did I learn professionally?

   This is the first "long-time" project I have had. I did learn a lot from this project. It is definitely important to make a "right" plan, which means the things on the plan can be finished on time and not be too many or too less for each member. I think I can make a more appropriate plan after this project.
   Since there are three people in my team, it is also important to keep in touch with others during the working time. And now I have more experience to work with others in a "big" program.

3. What do I wish Ming could have done differently?

   I wish that Ming can loose out the lightning talks (or something like that) of other semesters, because they may inspire you to come out with a great idea of your own app.

4. If I was to do this all over again, what would I do differently?

   I would like make a better schedule. At the very beginning, we planned to have a function like a chat room to let users communicate with each other in our app. However, we did not implement this function since we ran out of time. Instead, we just let users leave their contact information so that they could contact to others by other ways. If we could do more work at the beginning, maybe we can also implement the chat-room function.

5. If I could make one change to this Mobile Development course, what would it be and why?

   It will be great if there are some small tasks before the final project. The students can get more practice from these tasks and have more clues about how to start a larger project.