Turn On Your Future @ UWTSD's School of Applied Computing & Electronics

Posts tagged ‘Software Engineering’

Project profile: Kelly Casey

Name: Kelly Casey

Course: BSc (Hons) Software Engineering

Project Title: Women in STEM Study Buddy – A Mobile Application for Academic Networking

Logo
Fig.: FemSTEMConnect

Project introduction:
The motivation behind this project was to address the under-representation and isolation that many women in STEM fields experience during their academic journey. I wanted to create a platform that would allow female students to connect, support one another, and collaborate through shared academic interests. The project reflects both my technical interests and my desire to contribute to inclusion and equity in higher education.

Overview of the Practical implementation:
The application was developed in Android Development Studio using the Kotlin programming language, with Firebase Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform providing services for authentication, data storage, and real-time messaging.

Kotlin, Android Studio and Firebase image
Fig.: Kotlin | Android Studio | Firebase

Key features include:

  • Email link login (no passwords required)
  • Personalised academic profiles
  • Study partner matching using course and location filters
  • A Messaging system for real-time communication.
Fig: Coding

The project was tested on both emulator and physical Android devices for performance and usability.

Here are some screenshots from the final app up and working

Fig.: Navigation screen
Messaging inbox
Fig.: Messaging inbox
Fig.: Home screen & News feed

Conclusion: The final product successfully met the core functional goals. Users can register, create a profile, search for study partners, and communicate within the app. Although some features like the community forum were postponed, the application is stable, secure, and ready for future expansion. It represents a strong foundation for a peer-support platform specifically tailored to women in STEM.

What Career and job role are you hoping to move Into after Graduation? I’m planning to progress onto a Master’s degree and then move into a software engineering role, ideally within a company focused on education technology or socially impactful work.

Top Tips for Students interested in completing a University Degree: Don’t procrastinate. Choose a project that is manageable not just exciting. It’s better to complete something simple and solid than to get stuck in something too complex to finish on your own. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for help.

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For further information on Computing courses at UWTSD, please click-here.

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Watch this Space: Exciting New Courses

The Team at the School of Applied Computing have been busy updating all existing courses and writing a lot of exciting new ones*. The School’s undergraduate portfolio is being greatly extended with 7 new courses:

  • Applied Computing
  • *Business Computing
  • Business Information Technology
  • *Cloud Computing
  • Computing and Information Systems
  • Computer Games Development
  • *Computer Graphics & Visualisation
  • Computer Networks
  • Computer Systems & Electronics
  • Electrical & Electronic Engineering
  • *GIS & Environmental Conservation
  • *Mobile Computing & Application Development
  • *Robotics & Intelligent Systems
  • Software Engineering
  • Web Development
  • *Wireless Communication Systems

WATCH THIS SPACE ;-). For more information please click-here.

* Subject to validation.

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Guest Speaker: Edd Turtle in a Startup Culture

Edd Turtle

Edd Turtle, a graduate from University of Wales Trinity Saint David in Software Engineering, recently gave a presentation about ‘Web & Software Development in a Startup Culture’. The presentation spoke about both the software principles used in industry and opportunities for any students looking to start their own company.

Edd is the lead developer at a local startup company called Hoowla, which is an online conveyancing solution helping buyers, sellers and their solicitors to collaborate on cases together. The first part of the presentation focused on how cloud computing is used within Hoowla and other companies to maintain it’s online stability and scalability.

The latter half of the presentation focused primarily on the opportunities available to students in the local area, highlighting that there are technology companies (and jobs) in South Wales.

The School would like to thank Edd for returning to the School of Applied Computing to share his experience and knowledge with our current students, and we look forward to future collaborations.

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