Most high school students today are fond of their phones. So, programming apps for a phone is often more motivating than building Scratch apps. AppInventor is a variant of Scratch that uses the block programming approach to build very powerful apps for Android devices. It was originally developed by Google Labs (RIP) and is now supported by Hal Ableson’s group at MIT’s CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory).
In this assignment, you’ll add a significant new feature to an AppInventor app by working through Activities 1.2.2 through 1.2.5 in the course. You will need an Google account to use with the AppInventor website (you can create a new one if you wish), and an Android device – either a phone or tablet; Walmart has tablets available for under $40. The development environment is pretty slick: you can debug your app in real time from your browser (Chrome is strongly recommended) while it runs on the Android device as long as they’re on the same wireless network.
Feel free to skim through the Activities without answering all the questions and steps that don’t directly lead to modifying the program as described in Activity 1.2.5; these will take the students about 8 hours of class to complete and you don’t need to spend that much time.