Multimedia Video Themes

This year for the very first time, we have 5 different themes in the competition. This is to encourage as much diversity as possible in your TY Class groups. They are: 

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Inspire Me  
This can include topics like People who inspire me / Places that inspire me / Inspiration in my Community / Role Models to mention a few! 


Education
Where can education lead you? The Importance of Education / Getting to College / Differences in Education in other Countries to name but a few ideas. 

Social Media
Importance of it, Benefits, Affects / Impact on Society / Teenagers, How we use it, Downside etc

The Work of Charities
Marie Keating will be involved in this category, however we encourage students to find a charity that means something to them or who works in an area they want to know more about / Promote their work. 

Friendship
This is probably the most general topic - the importance of Friendship / People who have been Friends for many years / How to make Friends - the list is endless here! 

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The Challenge: 
To create a video that will be engaging and that you think your friends or others in your age group would be likely to share on social media. This video is a tool to communicate your message to the world.
You can include whatever you think is appropriate in the video to tell your story or communicate your message. 

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Deadline:
Thursday 27th April 2017 @ 5pm

Length of video:
Your video must be a minimum of 90 seconds and a maximum of 3.5 minutes.

Requirements:
1.   Every video entry must be accompanied by an Artist's Statement (available to download from www.unitydcu.ie) which outlines information on the project group, their role in the video and why this topic was chosen.
2.   Work must be filmed and edited by the students. Extracts from other sources must be acknowledged at the end of the video in the Credits.
3.   All videos must have a Title / Name and Credits at the end.
5.   Music must be royalty free as we will be uploading the videos to YouTube and sharing it with the wider DCU Community.
6.  ‘This video was made as part of the Unity DCU Programme’ should be included in the credits of your video. 
7.   Students must work in Project Groups of no more than 4 Students (there can be exceptions, but please make me aware in advance!) 
8.  All work must be the work of the students. 

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Judging Categories in each Theme

Best Documentary 
Best Production 
Best Smart Device Video (Video filmed completely on a Smartphone / Device
Most Inspiring Story
Most Creative Idea  
Viewers Choice Award (Video that receives the most views on the UniTY YouTube Channel)  

Any further questions, please email me - darran.heaney@dcu.ie 


Best of Luck to Everyone! 

BlueStacks Update

The latest version of BlueStacks (2.4.44) requires the user to log in to Google during the initial setup. This was previously optional, with a One Time Setup screen being displayed from time to time: this screen is now gone, as is the Welcome screen, with the result that the new setup procedure is more predictable and the overall user experience is cleaner. Performance and stability have also been improved steadily over the last few months.

Note: The Google account is not logged out when BlueStacks is closed, so users should consider manually disconnecting their Google account when using BlueStacks on a shared machine: go to Settings - Accounts - Google and select Remove account from the dropdown menu in the top right. Alternatively, a school may choose to create a dedicated Google account for use with BlueStacks, and leave that account logged into all instances of BlueStacks. Students would still use their individual Google accounts with App Inventor.

For more information about Bluestacks, refer to this earlier post.

Raspberry Pi and App Inventor

We have uploaded a selection of apps and accompanying Python files to the App Library which demonstrate how App Inventor can be used to build apps that interface to a Raspberry Pi. Examples include controlling LEDs, reading sensors, driving a robot, and viewing webcam images. There's also a multifunction app that combines all of these and adds speech synthesis for full remote control of a Raspberry Pi robot.

Coding: Next Steps

For teachers or students interested in growing their software development skills beyond the contents of the Smart Skills course, there are any number of paths to follow. This document lists some popular sources of further training, but is by no means exhaustive.

Chrome Portable and ARC Welder

Some schools may not be able to install ARC Welder from the Chrome Web Store as described in the instructional videos because of computer or network security restrictions. While we will assist schools to investigate and attempt to resolve these issues, we are also making an alternative installation method available.

This involves copying a version of Chrome Portable with ARC Welder already installed and configured onto each student PC. Since this only requires copying files onto the PC, it can be done without administrator rights. 

1. Download the zipped archive here, and extract the contents. It may be convenient to copy the unzipped folder to a USB drive in order to install it on multiple PCs.
2. Copy the entire folder called 'GoogleChromePortable' to the root of the C: drive on the target PC. It is important not to rename the folder or copy it to any other location, as the configuration of ARC Welder depends on this location.
3. Create a shortcut on the desktop to this copy of Chrome Portable: in the C:\GoogleChromePortable folder, right-click on the shortcut 'Chrome for Smart Skills' and choose 'Send to Desktop (create shortcut)', or drag it to the desktop.
4. On the desktop, double-click the newly created shortcut to open Chrome Portable. Click on the Apps bookmark to find ARC Welder. For convenience, the bookmarks bar also contains links to App Inventor and the Smart Skills Student Resource Centre.

Note that this installation of Chrome Portable can co-exist with a normal installation of Google Chrome, so it is important to distinguish between the two when students are opening a browser to begin a lesson.

MIT App Inventor Update

An update to MIT App Inventor was pushed out on 16 June, and users will see a pop-up screen alerting them to this on their first sign-in after that date. None of the updates described in the release notes should have an impact on existing Smart Skills apps. The new Pedometer component may be of interest for the development of exercise and fitness apps.

If you have installed the AI2 Companion App on an Android device in order to use the WiFi or USB 'live debug' methods, it will need to be updated to use the new features in this App Inventor release. If you installed the Companion App from the Google Play store, it will update automatically; if you installed it directly to your device, you will need to manually update to version 2.37 at appinv.us/companion.

Nox App Player

We are investigating Nox App Player as an alternative to ARC Welder for PC-based testing of apps built with App Inventor. Nox is an Android 4.4.2 emulator, allowing Android apps to be run on a PC.

The installer is just over 250MB and can be downloaded from http://en.bignox.com/. Installation requires Administrator privileges, and an email address is requested though appears not to be used. Installation and startup is a little slow. Nox recommends that virtualisation (VT-x) is enabled in the computer BIOS to improve performance, but this is not required and the emulator performs well without it.

To test an app with Nox, build and save the APK file in App Inventor as usual. The APK file can be dragged and dropped onto the Nox emulator, or there is a Load APK button in the vertical control panel to the right of the emulator. Once installed, apps are retained in the emulator until manually deleted. Switching between landscape and portrait orientation requires Nox to be restarted.