Mission Impossible

Coding for the Clandestine.

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Inspiration

Coding is tough. Coding feels impossible. Every one of us has experienced some level of frustration over learning a new skill- whether it is finding the right resources, running and debugging our code, or remaining consistent with our CS efforts. Inspired by timely classics like Among Us, we developed an app that creates the right learning experience for you.

What it does

Mission Impossible compiles the best courses across platforms and delivers them as bite-sized content to refer to as tutorials. You can pursue different routes- Full Stack Development, Java, C++. Once you begin a course, you are introduced to a world of secrets, schemes and spycraft. Through the (coding) tasks you're assigned as a spy, your work gets reviewed and you remain hooked. Through simple tutorials and immersive storytelling, MI makes the coder feel like a superspy- literally.

How we built it

In order to avoid any communication gaps, we first drafted a storyline on Google Docs and prototyped our model on Figma. We figured out the number and the layout of the screens for the application. Then we created our application on Android Studio. We used Firebase and Azure to enable notifications and will soon extend this for database support.

Challenges we ran into

This was our first time using Android Studio and creating an app. Integrating parts that individuals on the team had worked on presented a challenge. There needed to be constant communication for all of us to be on the same page. The emulator also slowly stopped running on our laptops, so it felt like we were coding in the dark for half of the time. For a lot of the issues we were facing, we consulted mentors who provided us with invaluable feedback. Using Firebase and Azure- services we were not familiar with at all- brought on tens of errors but integrating them with the application pushed us to learn more about APIs, packages and objects.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to adapt quickly enough to keep up with the demands of the project and were able to finish implementing planned components by the deadline. We adjusted quickly to a new environment- be it each other, the IDE or the added services. In particular, it was very satisfying to see that our app's interface on Android Studio was nearly identical to what we created on Figma!

What we learned

  1. There's a difference between sp and dp in font sizes.
  2. SVG is nothing but a blessing.
  3. Google Play Services can be linked to any project that you're creating.
  4. One of the most convenient aspects of an IDE is the ability to drag and drop buttons in Design and then customizing them in Code.

What's next for Mission Impossible

A warm bath, a good night's rest and online courses to create courses for our app.

We would be interested in broadening the functionality of the app, e.g. supporting more bite-sized courses with intricate backstories (scaling-up) and UI fixes for a smoother experience. We also intend to explore the free features of services like Microsoft Azure to expand on the workings of the application. Ideally, we will take a good two weeks' break to improve and polish the skills in our toolbox, many of which we discovered during this hackathon, before coming together for the game.

While it is typically easy to part with any hackathon project, this particular one is very close to us. We wish we could go back to learn coding from an app like ours, so we believe it has the potential to help someone like us out there. This team that was so mysteriously put together works well together. From screen sharing to figure out all aspects of GitHub to laughing at our own silly doodles and memes, we hope to bring the fun we had together to you.

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