As usual its been a busy week. Let me catch you up to speed with how development has been progressing and how I have spent Week 4.

Monday, June 11

Today I spent the majority of the day reading and working on familiarizing myself with Swift 4, Xcode, and the iPhone Emulator. I am still waiting on the book that Dr. Siek had ordered for the team and I cannot wait for it to arrive. I absorb knowledge and comprehend concepts more effectively when I read paperback as opposed to reading on the computer. The paper that I read for the day was titled “Every pregnancy is different”: Designing mHealth interventions for the pregnancy ecology by Peyton et al. it discussed Gestational Weight Gain (GWG) and the implementation of a mobile application to monitor health among a population of low income mothers. Many of the mothers, because of their low socioeconomic status, were uneducated on GWG and were ignorant of a healthy amount of weight to gain during pregnancy. Most mothers were proponents of the philosophy that every pregnancy is different, therefore GWG would differ amongst all mothers. The developers of the application aimed to prevent excessive GWG, so they synthesized the application to monitor health patterns and provide dietary suggestions. The study presented a paradigm for low income mothers to follow centered around pregnancy ecology and how the users interact with their surroundings. It definitely provided me with details on how our application should be constructed and what to specifically include and omit. Arash approached Ray and myself and inquired about a meeting tomorrow after Mini-University. I am eager to assist Ben Jelen with Mini U tomorrow and demonstrate to older adults how Arduino toolkits and paper circuits work.

Tuesday, June 12

Today was Mini University! It was so much fun. I arose bright and early at 6:00 AM I was so excited. I arrived at the Indiana Memorial Union at 8:15 to assist Ben and the rest of the ProHealth REU students with set up and material distribution. The program began promptly at 9:15. Our goal was to inform older adults on paper circuit assembly and Arduino circuit assembly. I was paired with Eugene for the day, which was pretty cool I must say. I took field notes while he took pictures and was in charge of recording the audio for the day. At 9:15 Dr. Siek gave the introduction, some background information, and instructions on the rudimentary aspects of circuits. Eugene and I assisted our 3 ladies at the table we worked at. The circuits and creative cards they designed were highly innovative. One woman even created a parallel circuit so that she could illuminate two flowers that she drew on a card for her and her husband’s anniversary. Another women created a lighthouse that would not light at first. I carefully reworked the circuit and put it in a loop, and the problem was solved. We never even took our break for the day because all of the women in the program were so engaged. Next up was the Arduino Circuits with a Light Sensor attached. Our ladies had some difficulty with LED orientation, but with some assistance from Eugene and myself we were able to get the light sensors to work. The ladies were enthralled. We cleaned up after a 2 hour session and then discussed field notes. I suggested that next time we teach the students about the physics of circuits and why the battery and LED’s positive and negative orientations are integral to getting a circuit to work. There was frustration expressed by many women in this category. Overall the experience was rewarding and seeing the smiles on people’s faces after a successful circuit was incredible. Today was a nice shake up of things, but I am ready to get back to work.

Wednesday June 13

Today was another day focused on improving the deliverables. I started the day by working on the introduction and the related works. I did my best to replace weak verbs and omit the passive voice.  Using the active voice makes the paper stronger and more concise. I was glad that I recalled that that was the correct form to use for academic papers. The related works looks very professional and I cannot wait to begin the abstract. Speaking of abstract, today we had our meeting on abstract construction and proper peer review methods. I learned the golden rule of abstract manufacturing, which is to never repeat the abstract’s initial sentence in the introduction of one’s paper. The abstract you should encompass methods, population, conclusions, and how it affects society or what other avenues of research can be explored. For peer reviewing, one should never be too hard on someone and always provide constructive criticism as opposed to “malicious” scrutiny. During the meeting I was able to take a professional headshot, so I cannot wait to see how that turns out and upload it to my Linkedin. After the meeting was over we were supposed to go and listen to a talk, but the room was far too crowded. Instead, Arash, Ray, and myself went over to Michael Chabin’s office to discuss application development. Dr. Siek recommended we chat with him, and he was very informative. He told us that we may want to consider switching IDE’s from Xcode to Unity, as it is easier to use and will work on Android and Apple OS’s. While I feel as though there are an infinite number of obstacles and software we must learn, I will not let efficiency be inhibited by ignorance. The trek continues and I am determined to produce an application worthy of beta testing, despite the time constraints.

Thursday June 14

I spent a substantial amount of time today researching our our most salient issue, the choice of an IDE. I suppose XCode has given me a bit of bias toward it, since I am more comfortable with it and am dynamic with the languages I can use with it. I downloaded Unity and tested it out a bit, but at this point I fear it would be detrimental to approach application development with a clean slate. After testing out the IDE and its features, I went to peer review. I was a bit timid to critique my colleagues’ papers, for I do not enjoy being harsh with my friends. But, I took a constructive approach instead of one of “malice” and was happy with the way that it turned out. I’ve had some feelings of trepidation in anticipation of receiving my own reviews back, as I hope it does not get torn to shreds and is comprehensive. Later in the day I had a meeting with Ray and Arash and we discussed what our GUI would look like and some of the primitive features the application should have. API incorporation is going to be a daunting task, but our main focus is the development of the initial starting menu that a mother engages with upon downloading the app. Ray and I hope to have developed this by next week Friday. Also, our Swift 4 book came in the mail, and I cannot wait to read it. That’s all for today, thew weekend is fast approaching.

Friday June 15

Today we had our ProHealth weekly meeting and heard talks given by Eugene and Hanifa as well as Aehong. The former group discussed their HomeShare project and the questions, surveys, and timeline that constitutes their workshop. I found the presentation to be stimulating but wanted to view more of the physical technology. It was a well done presentation and made me eager to present my work in the upcoming weeks. The group were able to hold their own when peppered with questions about their surveys. They were confident and I hope I can utilize the confidence demonstrated today for my presentation and at the symposium. Aehong’s presentation was excellent as well, and I cannot wait to see the technology she implements with caregiver’s in South Korea given the change in culture from America to Seoul. I spent the rest of the day touching up our introduction and solidifying our abstract outline, which was more difficult than I initially thought. We’re “cooking with gas” as the expression goes, and I feel that my weekend will even be bustling with code tutorials and aesthetic interface decisions. Until next week!