Grocery Guru Log

Jan. 23 - Jan. 29

created our WikiPage
brainstormed ideas regarding nutrition, groceries, and efficiency
considered creating an iPhone app that reads the barcodes on food products, and used the codes to help the user live a healthy lifestyle
talked about the possible applications a health-related iPhone app could have in hospital use
decided to instead make an iPhone app that aids a shopper as they make their way through a grocery store, such as Schnucks
brainstormed a list of functions our app could perform that would aid the average shopper: speed through the store, ease in finding products, map of the store, what products are available for purchase, how long their shopping run will take, etc.

the three members of our team met up on Wednesday to draft an outline of our proposal
drafted an overview and brainstormed a list of challenges, objectives, and a budget
we were assigned Andrew O’Sullivan as a TA
met with Andrew on Thursday and finalized each the components of our proposal (mentioned in previous bullets
he helped us brainstorm ideas for our demo in order to make it interactive
with Andrew's help, we learned the basics of how to create an iPhone app, including the possibility of needing to obtain a developer's license

met with Andrew on Tuesday to discuss problems with our proposal
added the challenge and the objective to make our app able to scan a limited number of barcodes on grocery items, so that our project is able to carry out a demo rather than a simulation
Maggie researched app development and started working on an app developing lesson provided by Apple https://developer.apple.com/library/content/referencelibrary/GettingStarted/DevelopiOSAppsSwift/BuildABasicUI.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40015214-CH5-SW1
Amelia researched different apps that have similar capabilities to our idea, including the Schnucks app
Anna edited and revised our proposal

this week we addressed the problems Humberto brought up with our proposal
we switched grocery stores so that we can have access to a list of all the products and the UPC codes
we added access to an amazon cloud database to our budget to store the data that our app will utilize
updated the project proposal to explicitly say what the app interface will look like
updated "time" to an approximate time that will be spent in the store to account for users not following the routes perfectly
this week all of the team members were tasked with learning swift language and completing a tutorial that teaches how to apply swift to xcode to create an app interface
we used these two links: https://www.airpair.com/swift/complete-guide-to-swift and https://developer.apple.com/library/content/referencelibrary/GettingStarted/DevelopiOSAppsSwift/

we met with Andrew on Tuesday and made additional changes to the objectives of our project. These objectives are as follows:
we will now be using Paws & Go instead of Schnuck's; therefore, we can better track the inventory of the store and have easier access to the products and their barcodes
we decided the primary goal of our application will be to provide the user with an approximate total cost of their shopping list
each member of our group, without communicating with the others, sketched an outline of the design we envisioned for our application. We then compared each of our designs and compiled our favorite parts of each one. We will use our compiled outline as a guideline for our application.
each member of our team downloaded multiple barcode scanning applications to our mobile devices and tested which one ran the most smoothly. We did this by testing the scanner with products from WashU dining facilities as well as from local grocers
each member continued to study the Swift lessons provided by Xcode
Amelia updated the Gantt chart to reflect our final project ideas
Maggie obtained a list of all the custom labels for Paws & Go premade items with the names of the items and barcode numbers
set up a meeting with Humberto for our first project proposal

met with Andrew and Humberto for the first evaluation to discuss the details of our app layout and goals
developed a target user for our app, which is aimed at students at Wash U who go to Paws & Go
defined a problem with Paws & Go that our app will be geared at solving: slow checkout and uncertainty of grab-and-go items in stock
reorganized and changed our objectives to solve this new problem
Amelia coded a barcode image generator that takes in a UPC number as a string
Maggie tested the barcodes generated from UPC numbers of grab-and-go items at Stanley's in Lopata Gallery, and it was a success!
Anna redesigned the layout and visual aspects of the application
re-designated tasks for the next couple weeks as a result of our changes in goals for the purpose of our app

further discussed the changes to be made in our app based off of our meeting with Humberto the week prior
with the help of an email from Humberto, Maggie did/is continuing to do research on setting up a cloud server
Amelia tested some of the barcodes Maggie found at Stanley's and Paws & Go by scanning photos of them - not only can the actual barcode be scanned, but a photo of the barcode can be as well!
Anna uploaded pictures of the app's outline onto our Wiki page

Amelia purchased Apple developer license and was able to display an app tutorial on her own iPhone, and coded the barcode scanner
Anna began working on the navigation and coding of the overall layout for the app
Maggie worked on connecting Amazon RDS to MySQL and encountered some errors with the Amazon LAMP tutorial, she is currently troubleshooting the errors that occurred
All three team members finished completing an Apple tutorial on coding an "Meal Tracker" app using Swift

Group scheduled our 2nd evaluation with Humberto for March 4th at 2:00pm
Maggie reached out to Humberto to plan a meeting to troubleshoot database
Amelia continued working on the code to be implemented into the app - she can now run the barcode scanner on your phone with hardcoded information as she waits for the database
Anna coded an outline for the app, including each of the pages we will be using. Navigation between each of them is also available

Maggie finished the tutorial to set up the LAMP server and recreated a data table that connects to our EC2 instance
Amelia and Anna combined their parts of the project to create one cohesive app, rather than having the navigation on Anna's laptop and the coding on Amelia's
All three of us met up to connect the database through a PHP file to Swift
We are still working on finalizing the database and testing the app

Amelia worked extensively on coding the search function of the app that limits the options as you type in key words and wrote and debugged the code for connecting our database to Swift
Maggie determined that using the server set up by Amazon Web Services was causing more errors and problems, so she set up a domain, recreated the database through phpmyadmin, and uploaded a php file with commands to connect the database to Swift
Anna assisted with writing code to connect our database to Swift and planned the poster for our demo
The last step we need to complete is adding the function to display and change the number of items in stock