The students spent the school year producing the app Struggle Assist, which automatically detects if a user has had a fall and then calls their emergency contact and texts the contact their location. Users can customize notifications in the app so that it can send out a high-priority notification, so a loved one can see it even when their phone is set to do-not-disturb, Reller said.
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It also allows a person to track falls and take notes on their falls, so they can show the data to their doctor who can look for patterns in time or location, McConnon said.
That is one feature the pair didn’t see when researching other free fall detecting apps.
The app is free and anyone can download it now through Google Play.
Reller and McConnon dealt with real-world issues while developing the app including Android documentation, varied sensor capabilities on different Android phones and the Oreo update.
The update affected a lot of what Reller and McConnon were working on at the time, so they had to spend a few weeks updating what they were already developing to compensate. It was a lesson of what can happen when a person is developing on someone else’s platform, Reller said.
Having a year-long project where they worked on all aspects it was also a good lesson.
“It really makes you realize how much thought has to go into things,” he said.
The project taught them both time management and planning skills, McConnon said.
“This felt a lot closer to what a real project would feel like,” he said. “… It was a better taste of what to expect of what a project would be like.”
Reller is now headed out to put his skills to work. He graduated in May and is readying for his first job in software development at Medtronic. McConnon has a semester to finish, but is interning this summer at US Bank.
Both students said that software engineering was the right choice for them.
“One thing I got out of this degree specifically … is my confidence in presenting, my confidence in talking about things,” Reller said. “Both of the main professors are extremely, extremely good about building you up about that and helping you learn how to really express your ideas and present them in a way you could talk to someone about it.”
Software engineering courses go beyond just the technical skills to really emphasize the soft skills like talking to customers and stakeholders and communicating on a team that are needed in the world today, McConnon said.
Other software engineering students focused their senior projects this year on web analytics, a 3-D tour and graduation planning software.
