Code Clan Week 9

This week is the Java/Android Project week, I made a simple Android app for non-native Chinese speakers to learn Mandarin in a fun way. I finished the project the way I planned it, on top that I have learned two things from the project.Firstly, I need to work on my force skills under pressure. At the beginning of the week I got carried away with trying to add a fancy feature to my app, without realising it completely drift me from it, by Wednesday morning I still have not done anything that I planned to do, at that time I panicked, I felt I may not have time to finish the project; what got me back on track again was re-plan the project and breaking the big tasks into smaller and achievable pieces, and focus on achieving them one by one, by late Thursday evening I was able to produce a basic and functional app. 

Secondly, I realised that Book reading and Video tutorial are great learning tools, but completing a project with the set goals in a given time is the best way to test one’s all around abilities. So next time when I am learning a new skill I will try to set up a project for myself to test my abilities.

The reason I decided to pick up my own project, is because I could like to keep working on it  in the future, for the current version I hard-coded the 10 possible combinations of the characters’ objects alone with the images and the sound. For the next version, I would like to implement an API or may be several APIs to provide better selection range and user experience to improve my app. 

In Summary, two things I have learned from this week, one break down big tasks and force on individual tasks, complete it one by one; two set up a project when learning new skills.