App Development Work
App Development Work (Team Projects, Marlborough Information Services)
During my time working at MIS (Marlborough Information Services), I've worked on developing apps for several mobile platforms. A game engine and editor on creating 2D apps for the Windows 8 and Windows Phone platforms. As well as an app used by referees & judges for professional swimming competitions.
Working as a developer in small teams for these projects, I've worked both on code and assets for these projects and we'd often work in a team of 2-4.
During my time working at MIS (Marlborough Information Services), I've worked on developing apps for several mobile platforms. A game engine and editor on creating 2D apps for the Windows 8 and Windows Phone platforms. As well as an app used by referees & judges for professional swimming competitions.
Working as a developer in small teams for these projects, I've worked both on code and assets for these projects and we'd often work in a team of 2-4.
Rapid2D 2D Game engine
The first project I undertook at MIS involving app development was the creation of a 2D game engine, aimed at creating apps quickly for the Windows 8 Store.Using a combination of an editor for scene layouts and C++ scripting for high performance code. The engine incorporated initially a rendering component of DirectX and used Box2D for physics.
Deployed projects could then be uploaded to the Windows 8 Store initially and eventually for WIndows Phone and Android by incorporating a OpenGL rendering component.
This project was a great introduction to app development from a tooling perspective and involved working closely with app submission guidelines.
App development with MIS
After the creation of a 2D game engine, apps were made and submitted to the Windows 8 store as part of testing. As part of a Microsoft drive for more apps on their store, the team I was involved in were creating apps using XAML / C# as well as the 2D engine.Throughout my time at MIS I've been involved in developing inhouse apps for students and E-Learning awards to showcase the importance of safety in a fun way.
Created primarily using Unity, these apps were both created in 2D and 3D with an emphasis on cartoon graphics and short production cycles of about a month.
SwimFriend, COmpanion app for Judges / referee
Most app development at MIS was inhouse productions for other parts of the company and ERR. With SwimFriend, the brief was to create an app for an external client that would be used to organize judges and referees at swimming galas.Primarily a database interface using SQL through PHP to communicate with a server. The app was to be used in live events for judges to claim faults or declare readiness for each event.
The most interesting aspect of this development was the specification that the apps needed to be fast and interact with web servers often in locations with no internet, WiFI or connection.
To this end we used a Raspberry Pi as a local server with a router which would communicate with all the tablets provided to referees and judges. Before an event the Raspberry Pi would pull all the information for the event and store all results, notifying each app when a change to the event has happened, such as a judge declaring their ready with Php polling on the SQL server.
After an event had finished the Raspberry Pi would then upload this stored data to a remote server when possible.