Ideas for an Android app to be created in a short hands-on class

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been given the assignment to come up with a project to create an Android app for a 90-minute hands-on Introduction to Mobile App programming class. The participants would be nonprogrammers who expressed an interest in computer programming, so it’s not just about showing them how to use an app. They will range from 18-years of age and up.

I’d have Android Studio set up and configured with a project that they could fill in the details, design an icon, launch the emulator, and then load it on their own Android devices. If time permits, I’d also let them upload the app they create to the Google Play store so they can show their friends and families.

I don’t want it to be a graphic-intensive game, but I’m not afraid of using simple graphics, the camera or GPS, or files or SQLite to hold some data.

With that said, any ideas on what kinds of apps they could complete in 90 minutes? It should be useful (something they’d come back to), personal (something they can look at and call it their own), and interesting (something better than a tip calculator).

Any ideas? I’m thinking of some sort of 15-square tile slider game of a personal picture, or a sunrise/sunset calculator with optimum fishing time, maybe their name with the letters floating on the screen, or perhaps a trivia game.

Suggestions please?

2

IMO 90 minutes is not very long to get people from being a non-programmer to creating much of an app.

I would suggest something simple like Tic-Tac-Toe, an address book, or a notepad/sticky notes type app.

But unless you’re a great teacher I’m not sure you will get them further than “Hello, World” in 90 minutes.

3

How about an app that sends a reminder of all/some their family and friends birthdays. Maybe program it to automatically send out a birthday message? Is that too complicated?

4

I’m not an Android dev, but I am a dev. Here’s another vote that your plan is about an order of magnitude too complex for 90 minutes. You’ve forgotten just how hard this stuff is for a total neophyte.

Come up with the simplest app you can imagine, like the tip calculator with a fixed 15% tip. So they need one textbox, one button, and one label for the result. Now teach the class to your wife, GF, or next door neighbor & see how far they get in 90 minutes of personalized tutoring.

You’ll get abut 1/3rd that far in a lecture format class with 20 students each getting stuck at different points in the process.

Let us know how it goes.

5

Just to answer my own question, here’s what I’m going to do:

I’m going to use MIT App Inventor 2, which is based on the MIT Scratch programming language. They have some one-hour introductory projects that are perfect for what I need to do. I’m going to use the Ball Bounce demo, and add in some color changes, use timer clicks to decelerate, and perhaps handle orientation changes if I can fit all of this in.

Although it’s not Android Studio, AS is a little too complicated for a short class. Plus we are using Scratch for our Introduction to Programming class, so this can easily become one of that sessions for for that class.

I hope this might help someone else looking for a quick demo of Android programming.