Poison Ivy

Not Hotdog, but for poison ivy. I created Ivy as a way to learn more about Apple's CoreML and Vison frameworks as well as to begin to dabble in SwiftUI. Ivy uses image classification to detect poison ivy plants. The model for Ivy was trained initially with images I took myself. I added a way for users to optionally and anonymously upload the images they take using Ivy which I categorize and use to continuously improve Ivy's model.

Improvements I have planned are to create an object detection model for Ivy. This will enable Ivy to indicate to users _where_ exactly it thinks there is poison ivy in the image, rather than today where Ivy just gives a prediction on whether or not the image given "is poison ivy" or not. Which means, if the poison ivy plant isn't clear or in focus, Ivy may identify a zoomed out picture or a picture with multiple types of plants as "not poison ivy" when there in fact, may be poison ivy in the picture.

Smirkus

The Smirkus app began as my Capstone project at Wheaton College. My goal was to learn iOS development and support Circus Smirkus. Since its first release in 2013 the Smirkus app has gone through multiple refactors and redesigns. Users are able to view the current summer’s tour schedule, buy tickets, get directions, add a show to their calendar, read about Smirkus’ history, view the Smirkus blog (optimized for mobile on device), learn about Smirkus camp and view show posters from years past. Originally all Objective-C, the Smirkus app is now a mix of ObjC and Swift.

ASCII PASTE

Some time ago, you could include a comment with a Venmo payment. That comment could be very long. If that comment was all emoji it could end up long enough to freeze and eventually crash the Venmo app. I built this app so I could easily copy/paste huge amounts of emoji to fill my Venmo history. Venmo has since capped the character count to <300. The possibilities for sending way too many emoji are endless-1.

Alien Digest

Alien Digest App icon

Alien Digest is a fun way to get your fix of reddit. A clean interface delivers daily digests of top content from your top subreddits at 8am and 6pm. You can refresh content at any time. The app also gets to know you and will suggest subreddits to check out based on your interests or location. Up vote, down vote, read comments, and stay engaged with the Reddit community on the go.

Alien Digest was created by myself, Richmond Watkins and Christopher Ruggles as our capstone project at the Mobile Makers Academy in Chicago, Il.

In just three weeks, we crammed as much as we possibly could into our app. I don't mean we filled the app with features for features sake. Don't get me wrong, our app has features, plenty of them. We streamlined our design to create a sleek, clean viewing experience all while including features that we feel will enhance your Alien Digest experience.

Some of the coolest stuff is all happening behind the scenes. Twice a day you get your digest. Everyday, 10 minutes before 8am and 6pm (in any timezone) our server silently alerts Alien Digest to wake up in the background and go out to reddit to request the latest top posts from the subreddits you've subscribed to. Once our app gets those posts it saves them in Core Data. Then, on the hour of 8am or 6pm respectively, we send a push notification alerting our users that their digest is ready. You open the app and bam, there are all your new posts ready to do with zero load time. How about that for handy?

We've added some clever ways to up/down vote on posts if you like them or not. You can even share posts. Check out the comments for each post we digest those two. The interaction with comments is all custom for our app.

Pocket Memos

Pocket Memos icon

I created Pocket Memos with ease of use in mind. I was tired of all the other recording apps out there that complicate the true purpose of their apps, with poorly designed layouts and unnecessary choices.

From the moment you open Pocket Memos it is clear how to use it and what it does. If you're interested in more than the basic options, they are available but they won't ever get in your way.

I created this app as a way to learn how to use Core Audio for iOS as well has how to connect to services such as Dropbox. With Pocket Memos you can create recordings, upload them to dropbox and email them to your friends.