Fall 2017

The 2017 Fall AppJam+ Program concluded with the 2nd Showcase Finale on December 6th with students from 4 Middle/Jr High Schools & 1 High School. Dreams for Schools partnered with the Orange County Center for International Trade Development to bring AppJam+ to Portola High School students and have them build apps with the theme of Global Trade & Business. The Showcase finale event was held at UC Irvine with 18 presentations by 14 middle school teams and 4 high school teams.

With nearly 100 middle school students from Alamitos Intermediate - Boys & Girls Club Garden Grove, St. Margaret's Episcopal School, Harbor Day School, Mariners Christian School, and 20 high school students from Portola High School, judges had an incredibly tough task to select 4 four winners to take the prizes and 1 winner for the high school category. In addition to the friendly judging competition, the event included a Best Poster Award, voted on by all participating students.

Showcase Winners:
1st Place: Kansas Kitties (Mariners Christian School)
2nd Place: WDEK (Mariners Christian School)
3rd Place: Cool Name Pending (Mariners Christian School)
4th Place: Creative Gamers (Boys & Girls Club - Alamitos Intermediate)
Student Favorite (Best Poster): Cool Name Pending (Mariners Christian School)
Center for International Trade Development Category Winner: Naropo Productions (Portola High School)

Learn more about the apps created by the students teams from each school by clicking through the school tabs below.

The2AppInventors


App Name: GrandNiteDuty
Mentor(s): MyLynn H.
Team Members: Ronald B., Aleksander C.
App Description: It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Oh wait, no it’s a hero! GrandNiteDuty is a trivia based game where players get to select their favorite hero as they battle it out with the villain answering questions from the field of mathematics. Every correct answer enables the fight button allowing the player to lower the villian’s health; however, one wrong question will lead the villain to lowering the hero’s health. Answering too many questions wrong ultimately leads to a game over, returning the player back to the title screen. Do you have what it takes to defeat the villain and save the people of the city? Well then venture on this quest of GrandNiteDuty!
Technical Components Used: Audio was used (such as sound effects and background music) and customized to be dependent on the player’s character selection. Textbox was used to make the app a bit more challenging requiring players to type and enter an answer rather than “multiple choice”. Other technological components used were buttons, labels, canvases, layouts, and image sprites.
Additional Comments: With more time, the students would have liked to implement a “shop”. Answering a question correctly would earn players coins which would then allow the player to exchange coins earned for different characters or different “attacks” (besides the default “fight”) in the shop. Also, given more time, the students would have liked to implement more levels where as the players progressed, the math questions would get more difficult.
Check it out:

TapTapMasters


App Name: TapTapTech
Mentor(s): Oscar O.
Team Members: John M., Marco G., Loreen P.
App Description: Tap to earn large amounts of money and upgrade your business while at the same time learning to add, subtract, multiply, and divide!
TapTapTech is a tapping simulation where you will be able to tap your device’s screen to earn one dollar each time you tap and after 45 seconds will need to solve a math problem in order continue playing. Answer the problem correctly and you will earn 4 more dollars per tap; otherwise, you lose $25 dollars and go back to 1 dollar per tap. After earning enough money, you will be given the opportunity to upgrade your business to a bigger and better store for a certain price. With TapTapTech you can learn, have fun, and tap tap tap!
Technical Components Used: Database, Lists, Audio, Buttons, Canvas, ImageSprite, Labels, ListPicker, Global and Local Variables, and touch function that dynamically changes labels and values stored in the database.
Additional Comments: If the students had more time, they would like to improve the way the math questions and answers are displayed, add more levels and more components such as a title screen and credits, and include more upgrades for the player buy with the money earned.

Creative Gamers – 4th Place Winners!


App Name: Saving Halloween
Mentor(s): Phuc N.
Team Members: Chris P., Jay M., Oliver F., Vincent T.
App Description: An quest to save Halloween from the Villainous Red Devil. Join us on an adventure to defeat the Devil and his minions using Mathematics. Save Halloween, save the world!
Technical Components Used: Audio, lists, button, canvas, timer, draggable imagesprites, dynamic changes in image, label, and button.
Additional Comments: If there were more time, the students would want to implement an attack animation and more stages of combat.

Team Billy


App Name: Billy & Timmy’s Adventure
Mentor(s): Jessica H.
Team Members: Alexander R., Alexzander L., Tanhea P., Emely O.
App Description: Answer math questions to help Billy and his pet pig, Timmy, on their adventure through a fantasy world!
Technical Components Used: Audio, global variables (ex: lists), Canvas & ImageSprite, touch input, timer/clock.

Savage Tacos


App Name: Mexican Taco Chow-down
Mentor(s): Carlos Gutierrez
Team Members: Jackson B., Adam M., Owen M.
App Description: Mexican Taco Chow-down is an educational app geared toward younger audience, and aims to help students develop their basic math principles. The app is centered around a particularly hungry character named Bob the snake, and the players job is to help Bob make his way through each and every level by solving the correct math problems and eating all of his favorite Mexican food dishes along the way. The player must answer the problems correctly before the tacos and burritos chase him down and take all of his lives away! At the end of the game bob the snake must defeat the Taco Boss, who has harder problems that Bob needs to make it out alive and eat all of the yummy tacos!
Technical Components Used: The technological components our team implemented into the app include databases, global lists, clock components, as well as more creative components including image sprites and pixelated canvases. The databases and global lists are used in the back end of the program to store the math equations and the correct answers to these questions. Together they serve as the major components holding together the logic of the app itself.

The Stepdads


App Name: I <3 New York
Mentor(s): Vivienne O.
Team Members: Jack C., Cameron M., Justin P.
App Description: I <3 New York is a life simulation, resource management game that allows the player to customize their character and control the amount of money they store in their bank account. The character starts off with no money living in the subway of New York and they earn it by answering math questions using their contact list and interacting with people in their contacts. The money they earn is then stored in the bank page where the player can either cash their checks or send a check to another person in their contacts. Ideally, the player will eventually earn enough money and move to a better location where they eventually become the richest person in New York.
Technical Components Used: A database to store information about a character's profile and account balance, check boxes and radio buttons (created from check boxes because radio buttons do not exist in AppInventor), imported background images and music, many layout arrangements to organize the UI.

The Anthonators


App Name: Relief
Mentor(s): Preston T.
Team Members: Carson M., Carter K., Lukas H., Richard L.
App Description: "Relief" is a disaster relief management game that puts you in the shoes of the CEO of Disaster Relief Co. Solve puzzles in math, engineering, and science to assist those in the wake of a natural disaster. Can you use your wits to help all the people before time runs out?
Technical Components Used: Database, ImageSprites, Audio, Animation, Timers

Cool Name Pending - 3rd Place Winners & Best Poster!


App Name: Cosmic Critters
Mentor(s): Erika L.
Team Members: Mitchel B., Evan H., Dylan T., Abby T.
App Description: Cosmic Critters is a futuristic space exploration game filled with cute but tough critters inhabiting three different colorful planets in the Snickers Galaxy. Don’t let his adorable face fool you -goofy main character Roller is a (mad) scientist collecting data for a space organization on his home planet for research. Silly and scatterbrained Roller lands on each planet, but always forgets where he parks his spaceship. Help guide Roller back to his spaceship by helping him through challenging terrain of obstacles and not so cuddly critters by answering a plethora of stimulating science trivia.
Technical Components Used: The main technological components utilized and implemented were multiple screens, canvas, image sprites, clock, and audio.
Additional Comments: All backgrounds and images was made by the team from scratch, and most music and sounds were also made by the students.
View a demo of the app here

Sapphire Flamingo Squad


App Name: Stranded
Mentor(s): Francisco A..
Team Members: Sofia M., Kailey L., Jayden K., Daylin C.
App Description: Our app allows students to escape an isolated island. Materials must be picked up throughout the map to build a ship which will sail them to San Francisco. This app tackles the key idea behind Engineering, critical thinking. Students must try to survive and combine the necessary pieces to build their boat and sail to freedom.
Technical Components Used: Lists, Buttons, Variables, Clock, Canvas, Sprites, Collision detection, and Edge detection

The Survivors


App Name: The Space
Mentor(s): Austin H.
Team Members: Lucas S., Caeden M., Brian Z.
App Description: You were chased by aliens in your space bus and had been shot down, and crash landed on an unknown tropical planet. You must find all the parts to complete the spaceship located on the planet and bounce the aliens back to space who are trying to capture you. Do you have what it takes?
Technical Components Used: Audio (created in garage band), Image Sprites (all sprites were made in Piskel by the creators), Image Sprite animation, Timers, Buttons for control, and Boolean Logic.

WDEK - 2nd Place Winners!


App Name: Space Escape!
Mentor(s): Darryl M.
Team Members: Shane A., Madison C., Lillian S., Kent W., Jenna P.
App Description: Space Escape follows a crew of astronauts trying to evacuate from their ship in order to avoid a disaster! Each crew member has to grab their materials and answer various STEM-related questions (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) in order for everyone to to make their escape!
Technical Components Used: Touch input, Piskel (students make their own pixelated sprites/backgrounds), buttons, timers.
Additional Comments: The biggest obstacle WDEK had to overcome was their creative differences when thinking of an app to build (Personally, I learned that 5th grade girls think very differently from 7th grade boys).These students had plethora of ideas and only a few weeks to implement them. I'm proud of what they built in that time, but I know that if they were given more time to work with AppInventor that they would been able to do so much more.

Kansas Kitties - 1st Place Winners!


App Name: Kitty Revolution
Mentor(s): Tu N.
Team Members: Spence R., Peter T., Luke D., Keegan D., Connor A.
App Description: Our game helps elementary school and middle school students practice math skills while helping the Kitties take back Kansas from the treacherous Ghost Pepper Geese. Players help the kitties scratch and hairball-throw their way through the end of level, hiding in houses when the hordes of geese become too overwhelming. Unfortunately, these houses are home to geese math sympathizers that force you to do math problems in exchange for protection. There are two levels: basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division for elementary schoolers and pre-algebra for middle schoolers. The longer you stay in the house for protection, the more difficult and quicker the math questions become. After defeating the geese, the player must defeat Mother Goose to take back Kansas. Come join the Kitty Revolution!
Technical Components Used: Timers were used for each individual sprite to simulate movement and damage. Various lists were used to create the list of problems and answers; a random number generator takes the index from the problem list and answer list to dynamically create the problems. Functions were brought to make the code readable, formulating a bulk of the algorithm. GarageBand was used to create all of the musical components. Piskel was used to generate some of the sprites.
View a demo of the app here

Terra-Graffiti Puffs


App Name: Puff Saver
Mentor(s): Robert D.
Team Members: Kaitlin M., Robert H., Tristan H., William V.
App Description: This is a game where the main character, an alien puff has come to Earth to save the planet. In the game, every level has multiple math questions that get progressively harder as the user journeys through the ruins of the Earth. The puff must be flung to pick a math question, and then it must correctly answer the question. As the game goes along, the player will learn about how to combat global warming and the causes and effects of it. If the player correctly answers all questions and passes all rounds, the puff will have saved the virtual world, the user will have learned valuable knowledge to combat global warming, promote sustainability, and "go green."
Do you have what it takes to save the world?
Technical Components Used: Canvasses, sprites, sounds, jpegs, hand drawn images, collision detection, screen optimization.

GamePro


App Name: Math Royale
Mentor(s): Marco L.
Team Members: Natalie G., Vernon E., Kent C., Jackson S., Ian E.
App Description: Our game, Math Royale, is an educational game which utilizes mathematics to defeat the enemy. Answer the various math questions correctly and the enemy's tower loses one of its lives, but be careful, if your answer is wrong then the enemy attacks you! After defeating the first enemy, you unlock the second level, then the third level and so on. Every level has different types of math problems with different combat settings. The game is designed to challenge students with mathematics and make it fun! Protect your towers at all cost!
Technical Components Used: Touch Input, Image Sprites, If/then statements, Lists, Table Arrangements, Procedures, Global and local variables, buttons, animation, Movement on a timer, Dynamically change label, Canvas, Audio.
Additional Comments: Through 10 weeks, these kids worked so hard and remained passionate through every single meeting. They drew every single image sprite, background, and character in the game. I find that very impressive. They all worked together and even took leadership on their own when necessary. They each had their own ideas and incorporated it into such an amazing project without arguments. They were so excited to work that at times they did not want to take breaks!

The Empire


App Name: Foody Fun
Mentor(s): Apurva S.
Team Members: Justin G., Brayden E., Arvin D., Ananyashri K.
App Description: Foody Fun is a game where the player will go through a journey to become an exquisite food expert. The game implements global food options from Mexico, America, and China. By the end of the game, the player will gain knowledge of various cultures and foods that are found around the world.
Technical Components Used: Audio, visual, informational screen.

Team Indecisive


App Name: Natropia
Mentor(s): Nicholas W.
Team Members: Ali E., Mason C., Benny B., Anirudh C., Satvik C.
App Description: Earth is in danger from rising pollution levels and it needs YOUR help! Combine your inner entrepreneurial spirit with your love for Earth to help reduce the global pollution rate to keep our planet green. Work with other countries by trading with them to acquire new resources. Use money and resources to build various buildings. How will you grow and manage your pool of available resources while reducing the Earth's pollution?
Technical Components Used: Databases, audio, timers, dynamically changing labels, if statements, buttons, image sprites.

Sporders


App Name: World of Sports
Mentor(s): Bailey K.
Team Members: Daniel C., Aamina K., Preet P., Aditya S., Anirudh S.
App Description: Dive into the World of Sports! Ever wonder where a particular sport originated? How about the way the same sports are played in different countries? If so, then this app is for you! In this informational app, World of Sports, you'll learn the history, rules, and upcoming events held around the world.
Technical Components Used: Databases, text-to-speech, webviewer, and reusable components (buttons, labels, images) that change based on user input.

Naropo Productions


App Name: Global Entrepreneur
Mentor(s): Kameron B.
Team Members: Andrew F., Aaron B., Cameron F., Venkat K., Aryan E.
App Description: Global Entrepreneur is a simulation game where the player controls an entrepreneur trying to spread his or her product worldwide. The player must reach a targeted amount of customers with their product before their competitor does while bolstering their company with various upgrades. As the player progresses, random events can either help or hinder them in their pursuit and the competitor player continues to expand their company as well. The player is assisted along the way through partnerships with various global companies that can help them increase their rates and work their way to victory!
Technical Components Used: Databases (heavily utilized), image editing, variables, math (rates, percentages), randomization.