Beyond “Hello World”

The thrill of creating my first Android app was short lived.  The ADK is vast and I have no outline or road map that comforts a spoon fed student.  The real reason for taking a stab at smart phone app development was to get at those sensors and store the readings.  This is going to require user input, screen output, sensor readings, and data storage.

In Search Of

The simple task of reading sensors proved to be a challenging one.  There is so much information available on the topic, the NOOBS typically search the wrong phrase with dead end results.  Time is a luxury for me and each attempt has to produce some meaningful result.

Back to my notes

I decided to look at more of the tutorials that AndroidPreK offered.  The user input steps and screen output portions seemed to be satisfied with the instruction.

Sensor readings

I looked and looked but the answer never really stood out at me.  I found a Thai blog that had some information, but the video on Youtube failed to run on my browser.  Good golly Ms Molly!  After getting congressional approval, I was able to finally load the page in Google with translation.  The real gem of the blog was the code shared at the bottom.  About Time!  I was able to import into Eclipse and get a better understanding what all the other search results were talking about.  The code was the bridge.  Thank you Ake Exorcist.

Bridge over troubled waters

The new sensor code emboldened me to do some more searching.  The sensor list wasn’t comprehensive for my variety of Android phones.  All of the phones contain microphones, yet this simple oversight was made with the sample sensor code.  If the code I found earlier was the bridge, then my discovery of SensoDuino was the express lane across it.  This app really brought it all together.  Techbitar had done the leg work, this is exactly what this quarter is about!

What is on the other side?

It seemed like the phone integration was unavoidable, now I know it is.  I have seen too many demos of applications, such as the smart helmet, the pollution sensor, and now the Arduino.  This sensor fusion is pervasive and these devices are showing up everywhere, not just in phones, but in cars, structures, appliances, and roads.  In the 2 short weeks of this quarter, I have been fortunate to make such headway.

Now I feel more at ease about branching out and researching how this data is presented.