Sprint Goal

• Communicate about project ideas

During this sprint we started it by discussing potential ideas for the project we started off talking about crypto as it would be something new and challenging and another idea that we floated was on a trading bot which would look at the crypto market on a trading platform and we would create an algorithm that would trade for us. However we then all got Covid and didn't do anything for this sprint as we focused on recovering.

Sprint Goal

• Propose project ideas
• Research Crypto fundamentals
• Figure out what roles people want to fit into

We have 2 new additions to our team Rodions and Mahaveer. We propose some of the ideas to Naoise however we instantly come across legal and ethical issues with the few ideas that we have. We also come across huge scope issues where we are getting worried that with the current project idea we might not have enough work for 5 people to keep busy.

During this I was trying to look into crypto to understand how it fundamentally works so I can communicate with the rest of the team on the project and to not be left in the dark or to have time wasted for stuff to be explained to me.

Sprint Goals

• Prepare for informal show and tell
• Use feedback to narrow down scope and project idea
• Start working on I-CA1

After our show and tell and feedback from the panel on a small prototype we decided as a team to shift ideas from a crypto wallet to a Travel audio guide application. The justification for this was, this idea has the potential for more scope and and this idea is a lot more simpler to where anybody can understand it and doesn't carry the topic complexity of crypto. This also seemed to boost the teams genuine interest, it was a shame to not hear anyone object to the previous idea that they weren't interested.

I proposed to Dennis that me and him write out a document for this new idea so we can send it to some of the panel members and check if we're ok to change ideas. In this document we write out the idea, assign team roles and try to write about things that the panel mentioned from the old idea during show and tell like use cases and target market. I also told the rest of the team to check out this document so they could add anything that we might have missed. The rest of the sprint was spent making this Mahara collection

Sprint Goals

• Address feedback from I-CA1
• Address feedback from concept document
• Research into React-Native

Sprint 4 felt uneventful from my side as it started after the interviews. I got asked questions about my role as team lead during the interviews like "what kind of philosophy will you be using as Team Lead". I spent a little bit of time looking into this question but to no avail. Also after sending out document i created another document that contained the worries that some of the panel sent back after we sent a concept document out.

The challenging part about this document was getting everyone to interact with it, which means a meeting has to be scheduled with the team and I have to ask questions related to it. Also it seems some members don't read the documents or the messages that I send in the group chats since they ask questions that are answered in the same day, which is a little demoralising.

Sprint Goals

• Inform team of T-CA1 requirements
• Make pages for Team Mahara and assign to people
• Create PowerPoint slideshow for panel Presentation
• Co-ordinate team meetings to communicate about the iteration of prototype.
• Work on landing Page of Team Mahara

At the beginning of the sprint the team assigned Mahaveer to be responsible for creating the prototype and informing the team of meetings so he can receive feedback continuously. I worked on creating the Team Mahara and assigning pages to individuals I personally focused on the landing page. I started working on the presentation simultaneously with Dennis and Jeremy and rehearsing the slides we would talk about. I then helped out Dennis with animating the prototype and making the colour palette softer. The document addressing the worries made us well prepared for the questions section of the presentation.

Challenges/Issues

When we coordinated for a meeting to happen to give feedback on the prototype Mahaveer would cancel a few hours before the meetings, this made Dennis more and more worried which after a while he decided to create a prototype of his own. Rod and Mahaveer arrived 1 hour before our assigned time for the presentation which made our rehearsal a bit choppy. Dennis suggested that we would role play our prototype I made the decision to not do this which was actually a mistake. We also should of had an audio file ready to make the prototype more immersive

Sprint Goals

• Clean up Team Mahara after feedback
• Set up GitHub organisation and repos
• Create Scrum labels and talk about epics with Jeremy
• Ask team to use Used Time feature on Scrumwise
• Create a google group
• Plan Release 1

Set up links on Team Mahara and Individual Mahara for GitHub and Scrumwise. Created a GitHub repository to hold our files from T-CA1. Also talked with Jeremy and the team to try and improve our Scrumwise usage by using the Used Time feature and putting on labels for the tickets. Jeremy and I took to creating epics but then realised we would need the specialism from the other members so they can help us fill out the epics. I also created a Google group so when someone wants to invite the whole team to a meeting or share something with the whole team they just have to put in the groups name rather than each individual email.

Challenges/Issues

I mentioned that we should use this sprint to plan our Release 1 however this never came to fruition and it seems nobody was aware of this.

Sprint Goals

• Plan Release 1 in person
• Work on the functionality of the Login and Register Screen
• Implement Denis' Google Oauth code
• Get Accustomed to working with React Native

Just before this sprint we were going through the process of finalising our Release 1 plan. This sprint was slower than the other sprints as I noted in scrum that our team is busier than usual with other assignments. I was waiting for Mahaveer to create the UI for the Login and Register screen. He created a very good UI with all the buttons. When I started to work on my task it was a little confusing getting into it but after a while I started to understand how to work in React native. Then later on in the sprint I synced with Dennis so he could help me out with getting Google Sign in working because he was working on getting it working in a sandbox environment and he helped me integrate it into our app. After that I used the buttons that Mahaveer created for them to work with the back end and make the correct API calls and so our app successfully moves between the screen so when a user logs in they go to the home page.

Challenge/Issues

This sprint was delayed until Friday due to use having to do a release plan process through the whole week and we didn't do it in the previous sprint. The sprint plan was scheduled a day before and Mahaveer and Rod both acknowledged it but showed up late or didn't notify of no show :(. The release planning was going quite smoothly but when Rod showed up the quality of the meeting and notes that were being written dropped noticeably. I have not worked in this development stack for so long it felt extremely scary and confusing working in it that I needed help from Jeremy and Dennis. I didn't mark the ticket as done because it wasn't done by the "Definition of Done" this makes it show that I did 0 hours on this sprint

Sprint Goals

• Using Google Places API retrieve information from a location
• Display the Title, Photo of the location
• Have a button to play audio for the location

From the last sprint Rodions created a map screen that had a search box and I implemented a feature where when a user searches through that search button and clicks on the results it brings up a small information box about the location that is retrieved from the Google API. Currently the information that is parsed and displayed is a title, a photo of the location for some reason there is a bug where the user has to click twice in order for the information to be displayed. I also created a button that fetches audio through either a URL or a local file however there is a but with the emulator where it doesn't audibly play the audio but it is technically playing because I can retrieve the information of the track and timer goes up.

Challenges/Issues

The emulator doesn't play audio when I retrieve the audio file. Our application has 2 bugs that delay development, using GitHub Issues I documented how to bypass them so work can be done but we don't know a permanent fix to the issue.

Sprint Goals

• Update Mahara for I-CA2
• Get Audio working on the emulator
• Make a big display of the location information

The only thing I got done was updating the individual Mahara

Challenges/Issues

This whole sprint I was stuck in a rut because I have recently started living alone and I am busy cleaning out the house and trying to get a handle on everything alone. I was doing exams and smart tech CA's and couldn't even think about working on this collaborative project. I also have realised that I completely hate my role on the front-end.