Making your-very-own-android-apps-for-waternomics-using-app-inventor-2

Making your very own Android Apps
for Waternomics Using App Inventor 2
By Wassim Derguech and Brendan Smith
What is Waternomics?
Waternomics is European Project led by NUIG. This project aims to reduce water
consumption of municipalities, corporations and domestic users by providing water
managers and consumers with timely information about water usage and water
availability. The project makes information about the water services system available to
stakeholders in real-time in order to stimulate water saving. By employing smart water
technology, the project (i) enables the detailed and real-time measurement of water flows
and usage, (ii) supports analyses of water consumption patterns and (iii) provides key
recommendations on how to increase water efficiency.
What is App Inventor 2?
App Inventor is a graphic or block-based programming language online tool that enables
users to learn coding and to build fully functional apps for Android devices such as
tablets or phones. It was developed in collaboration with Google by a team at MIT, the
same institute that gave us Scratch, the world’s most popular programming language for
young people.
Course Aims
The aim of this course is to:
• Help in the process of transforming participants from being digital
users (consumers) into digital creators.
• Become proficient in a programming language known as Apps Inventor 2
• Enable participants to build apps using Waternomics data.
Requirements
• Internet-connected computer
• A Gmail account
• An Android mobile telephone or tablet (or a simulator on the computer)
• Installation of a QR Code Scanner on telephone or tablet.

Your very first app will display “Hello World!”
Step 1. Go to your web browser on your computer, Access the App Inventor by
typing in on the address bar:
http://appinventor.mit.edu to learn about App inventor.
http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu to start App inventor (this is what we need now)
The Google accounts page will now appear.
Type in your account details for (one of) your Gmail account(s).
Should you not have a Google account, please set up one from this page.

The next screen prompts the user to set up and connect an Android device or
alternatively to set up and connect an Android emulator from your computer.

Select the relevant link and follow the installation instructions.
Once connectivity has been accomplished, the user is brought to the Projects
View.

Select Projects at the left side of the top bar.
Select Start New Project

(Note for teachers - Show students a completed Sample of the type of app that you
expect them to create).

Give a Name to the Project without using any spacing between letters.

The following screen (home page) appears:

The Designer editor screen that now appears relates to the layout of the app (how it
looks) or what is referred to as the Graphical User Interface (GUI). It is this screen
that will appear on your mobile app.

The different sections and their functionality on the Designer screen are shown
below:

Clicking on Blocks at located at the upper right side brings the user
to the second screen of App Inventor which is the Blocks editor that represents the
actual programming (coding) environment.

Return to the Designer screen, by clicking on the upper right hand
side of the screen.

First we will give a background image to the screen which will appear on your
phone.
Under components, click on Screen1

Go to the Media title underneath Components and upload an image

Then go to the Properties section and select Background image. Your upload image
should be listed. If so, select OK.

Select Layout of the Palette on the left side of screen

We are now going to place functionality components onto the screen.

First we divide up the screen into different sections.
This is done using the Layout section of the Palette.
In this instance, select Horizontal Arrangement and drag it to the top of the screen.
This component is a formatting element that places and displays components from
left to right.

Under its Properties, choose a background colour (preferably light in tone).
Then go to Width and choose Fill Parent which will ensure that this element go
across the full width of the Screen(i.e. Parent).

Now into this section we will position a Button taken from User Interface. A button
is a component that can be coded to detect clicks by the phone user.

In the Button’s Properties, type in the text ‘Talk to Me’.

Should you wish, you can also change the text and background colours.

Go the Media drawer in the Palette and drag to the screen where
it will be shown as a non-visible component. is the component
that is used to speak a message.

Now we leave the Designer and go to Blocks Editor as it is time to tell our app
what to do by coding in functionality.

We want to make the Talk to Me button to do exactly that - talk.

The first set of blocks shown on the left are known as the Built-in Blocks. Each one
contains a series of code blocks that are based on themes such as text, listings etc
which show on the Viewer. These can be dragged to the Workspace on the right
which represents the area where blocks are joined together to make a programme.

Select Button1 from the Components section.
A series of graphic blocks of code will appear in the View section.

Drag to the workspace.

Click on

Drag and place within the block.

This is the code that will make the phone talk.
As it signifies this will happen when the button on your app is clicked. However it
needs to be told what to say. This is achieved by going to the selecting
and attaching it to existing code as follows:

To specify exactly what to say, type in a message in the

Now test it out by clicking the Talk to Me button on your phone, tablet or emulator.

If you are not connected to your mobile device or emulator, select the appropriate
option on the Connect drop-down menu:

The text that you inputted into the block coding should now be spoken by your
device to your goodself!

Your second app will speak to you

This course lesson will allow participants to have their phone say out loud the
words and sentences that they typed in.

First step. Go to www.appinventor.mit.edu and click on the Create App option.

Alternatively log in directly to your App Inventor account by typing in
www.ai2.appinventor.mit.edu

Either way, App Inventor will always bring the user direct to the last project that
was worked on.
In our case, it will be TalkToMe.

Click on Designer mode.

Go to User Interface.

Remove button labeled Talk To Me from Horizontal Arrangement and position it
below this component.

Select and drag it into the Viewer positioning it in Horizontal Arrangement.
It will now rest above the Talk To Me button.
From within its properties, go to Width and select fill parent.
This component will function, once coded in Block editor, as the element that allows
the user to enter text on the phone (or emulator).

To make this happen, go to Blocks.
Remove the from the blocks of code in the Viewer, place in
and replace with in

is the instruction that will allow your app to speak out whatever
you typed into the text box.

Test it out by clicking on Ai Companion (if you have an Android phone) or the
Emulator if you do not.

After typing in a sentence, click on the button ‘Talk To Me’ which should activate the
smart device to speak the words out loud.
Type in a new sentence and repeat the process.

Your calculator app

This lesson will allow participants to create an app that calculates simple arithmetic
such as addition and subtraction.

First step. Go to www.appinventor.mit.edu and click on the Create App option.

Alternatively log in directly to your App Inventor account by typing in
www.ai2.appinventor.mit.edu

Either way, App Inventor will always bring the user direct to the last project that
was worked on.

Select Projects at the left side of the top bar.
Select Start New Project.

Give an appropriate Name to the Project without using any spacing between letters.

You will now be brought to Screen 1 in Designer.

From Layout in Palette, select the Table Arrangement component; drag and drop it
into Viewer. This component is a formatting element that is used to place/display in
tabular form.
Under Properties, set Columns as 2 and Rows as 2.

As we will be calculating the addition of two variable numbers to represent the
functionality of this app, a Label component from User Interface for each needs to
be placed within the Table Arrangement.
For each of the two Label components, go to its Properties and type in an
appropriate name in the Text box where the variable numbers will be inputted by
the app user. For this example, we will use the titles Enter X and Enter
Y thus giving on the screen:

Go to User Interface, select Text Box; drag and drop it to the right of Enter X in the
Table Arrangement.
Repeat the process for Enter Y option to give

This is followed by a third text box where the result (answer) of the calculation
between the two numbers will be shown after a Button is clicked.

So select Button and Text Box and place both in the Viewer under the existing Table
Arrangement.

Go to the button’s Properties to change the display text from Text to Button1 to
Calculate. Pick a suitable background colour (see above graphic).

In TextBox3 Properties input = (equal sign) in Text (see above graphic).

To undertake the coding, go to Blocks editor.
In the Blocks section, click on Button; drag and drop into Viewer.

Go to TextBox3 icon in Blocks and position in

to give
The blocks of code representing mathematical functions are located in .

represents the sum of two numbers and is placed in the Viewer as
follows

Completion of the programming for the calculator app is done by placing code from
the TextBox1 and TextBox2 components to allow variable numbers for both Enter X
and Enter Y to be entered into their corresponding label boxes.

Test the operation of this function on your app by clicking on Ai Companion (if you
have an Android phone) or the Emulator if you do not.

After typing in a number for both X and Y, click on the button ‘Calculate which
should result in the answer appearing in the third box

Your Water Calculator
This lesson will allow participants to create an app that calculates the water
footprint of food and products that we eat/use.

We will use data from Waternomics project regarding Water footprints.
First of all get yourself familiar with Water Flavours App available at
http://vmwaternomics01.deri.ie:8012

We will use the metaphors, and footprints available in this application to build ours.

Start by creating a header to your application:
Go to http://www.waternomics.eu and download the header image.

Create in you screen a first layout and set its size to fill parent then make this image
at a background image for this layout.

Choose any of the water footprints or metaphors and download its image then insert the
required components to your application following this layout:

The following block allows you to create the calculator for water footprint for a cup of
coffee:
Please note that the numbers 125 and 132 are taken from the rule : 132 L of water is
required to produce 125 ml(s) of coffee.

Making your-very-own-android-apps-for-waternomics-using-app-inventor-2

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