CB00881 Smart Cities

Continuing on where we left off , we've changed our plan. Trying to figure out work-arounds STEPS is really no different, functionality wise, to just uploading the landmarks data ourselves to an Arcgis map. So, this week we'll divide our responsibilities as follows: Luly: front-end for our web platform Chuy: data scrapping for Edmonton landmarks Martell: sending data to an Arcgis map using Golang The whole point of this is that by the end of the week, our platform will be both more visually appealing, easy to use and functional. And with this, I think the perfect time has come, once more, to quote the wise Leonard Snart... image obtained from https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/16/bf/1116bfb84800e4490ec2255a441452e7.jpg

So, as mentioned in my last post , this week was... busy. To say the least. Too many projects pulling our strings, deadlines and requirements for which we had to prioritize our goals. For this project, that meant simply putting it aside briefly. Temporary pause. It truly would have been of no use to try and split our attention even further, our progress wouldn't have been much here, and would have instead just lessened even further the time we did have for our exams and other projects. I think it was the right move, and shall continue pushing now. The view is now clear and we can continue working without that many things on our way... full steam ahead! image obtained from https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2851/8848919204_9eca083c52_b.jpg

This week went by quickly. Jumping from one task to the next, its end suddenly came and we were left wondering what time we had actually dedicated for this project. Turns out, we didn't. Partials took us by storm, and twisted our time management skills to their limit. Some things had to be put aside. And sadly, this project was one of them. But, breaks aren't always so bad. This helped us take a breath and gain a new, fresh look now back at it all. And that's all there is. Not much else left to say. image obtained from https://www.reviewtrackers.com/procrastination-productivity/

This week we plan to continue developing our back-end side of the project. Mostly though, we'll be centered on figuring out how to use the Steps API previously developed by the Alberta team so that we add there additional info and media for important landmarks. The thing is, right now the Steps project is structured around "sidewalks", routes. We're not yet sure how we'll add landmarks, perhaps as routes that start and end at the same coordinates? The documentation for Steps is not very clear for where we can add this information. Hopefully we'll figure out a way, or a workaround, soon. image obtained from https://searchengineland.com/founder-openstreetmap-good-better-google-maps-already-192089

As mentioned in the last post , a couple things happened this week... first, there's no final project anymore for the Software Quality and Testing course, so we can shift our focus towards the most crucial parts of the project. Not leaving testing aside, just lower priority now. We had another meeting with the Alberta team, we were instructed to focus on creating the platform through which landmarks can be added and modified, as well as some multimedia scrapping for these places. All this, through the Steps API. Some changes were made in the front-end for displaying the map with points, as well as our Go API. All looking good, much work still to be done. image obtained from http://www.quoteambition.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Teamwork-Quotes.jpg

So, you probably came here because you're interested in what it is I did this week regarding this project. Otherwise, you really must've not payed attention to the title. I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory. Hoping you're not here by accident, let me explain what this week was all about then: partials. Mostly projects, actually. And I'm expecting this coming week to be very similar. Yay. I think we were all pretty busy, but still found some time to advance on what needed to be done here. For one, in the Software Quality and Testing class now there's no final project... so, the part of this project that was dedicated for that now is going to be much more flexible and for the most part, easier on us. We can direct our efforts on the other areas. On Friday we had a meeting with the Alberta team, where a few things were clarified. Among them, that we should focus for now on having the platform where data is going to be added and modified up and running. We...

This week, as explained in my last post , we made some final decisions on the technologies we'll be using for the part of the project we'll be in charge of: web/backend. All these decisions were made mainly according to the requirements of a class I'm not part of, but the rest of the team is. For this reason, and for us not to overstep in each other's way, I will be focused on the Data Analysis part of it all, or as specifically detailed by our client: developing analytics  features so that the platform administrators can see how the platform is used, such as (for example): how many assets we have, within an area? when were these contributed? what channel and which individual is the biggest contributor?   how many people did this tour? how long did it take? For me to start actually working on these features, though, a few components of our architecture will have to be ready first. Perhaps we can start agreeing on how the data is going to be structured in our...

This week we finally have a clear sight of what we need to do and how we are going to do it. Below there is the preliminar arquitecture for our project with the different technologies we are going to use: We are going to use Heroku to host the whole project, Postgress for our DB, Go for the API and VUE for our web client. Travis is used for CI and solid still has a grey area defined for it as we dont know exactly how much we are going to implement. We are also going to be splitting our work load so that each of us focuses on the different areas, Martell will be focusing on data analysis, Lucia on front-end design and implementation and Jesus on API integration. From the other courses we will have a group focusing on creating tests for our project. The Go API will probably have a TDD focused approach, while front end tests will be developed after those parts are done. On the Web development course we are focusing on the Go API and postgress integration as well as mounting the s...

This week we plan to start working on a few of the things we've been going about back and forth with the Alberta team. Specifically, and on track with what's planned to be delivered on the Web Development Lab class, a map with points shown from the Datos Abiertos Jalisco platform. This, through a very basic API. We also have planned to integrate Github with travis-CI for testing automation. Eleni (UofA) has also mentioned a few other responsibilities of our team that hadn't been considered before: ingesting/scraping data to populate the back-end database developing analytics  features so that the platform administrators can see how the platform is used, such as (for example): how many assets we have, within an area? when were these contributed? what channel and which individual is the biggest contributor? how many people did this tour? how long did it take? So when the time comes, we'll want to incorporate these tasks into our planning. ... ... ....

Hey, you. Hello. As you may have seen in my previous post , we now have more concrete details about how we'll go about building this project. And to reach the agreements we now have with the Alberta Team, for me this week has mainly been about staying up to date with our communications through email and discord. Also, I'm starting to formulate some ideas in my head about how this project could easily relate to other courses I'm now taking... but, there's also the possibility that this project turns out to be way simpler than we thought. Which would be good, but we still want to end up with a good result that real people want to use. I've also been digging more about how the Google Local Guides community works, since those mechanisms and strategies could light the way for us to do something similar. Motivating people to contribute to this project won't be easy. Aaand I guess that's it. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

This week, following our meeting on Monday, our communication with the Alberta team has been more constant. They've let us in some of the details we missed from our video meeting and informed us of some specific requirements their clients have. We've also been discussing with them about which technologies we've used in the past and feel most comfortable with. This has led to some agreement on the most part, deciding that (mostly) we'll be taking on the web development side of the project and them on the mobile client. We were also presented with a general idea of what this app is planned to look like: With all this in mind, we've decided as a team to go with the following system features: visualization of points of Interest in map routes creation with multiple points of interest, in order routes can be approved or dismissed by other users information about MiBici stations for routes information about points of interested can be edited by users automat...