Pyso – A Location Based Social Network

Several different things have happened since my last entry. I have received a few rejection letters for my summer placement (which I haven’t found yet, but remain hopeful!) and developed a couple of interesting Android applications, including my third year project. As I should have mentioned previously a big chunk of your third year will be spent on working on a project, which you may have chosen from a list of “possible options” or from your creativity.

I am currently developing an Android application, called Pyso, whose aim is to track “the friends” you have on this network 24/7 and show their location on a Google Map. It has been quite challenging, because it was my first Android application, my first backend infrastructure and my first RESTful API. That’s why, from my point of view, this project has been one of the most interesting things I have done in the past three years, since I was able to choose what I wanted to do and learn the things I needed in the way I planned to.

The project uses a simple client-server architecture, where the client is a native Android application and the server, which runs on Amazon EC2, is developed using Django, a Python Web Framework. The first few marks you’ll receive will come from a “Seminar”, which is something close to a “pitch” you give to two markers. It’s a simple 20 minutes presentation, where you have to underline what your project is, why you are doing it, what you have done and what you are planning to do in order to finish it.

My seminar was pretty straightforward, given the extensive oral communication skills I have developed last year thanks to GreatPreneurs :), that’s why I got a nice first. At the moment, I have got a few things done, including a “Friendship” system (in the Facebook way) and a nice way to communicate with the server. My next few challenges will be in determining the frequency of Location Updates I can receive without breaking the phone battery.

As the deadline approaches (mid-March), I will keep you updated, even with a few screenshots which I am not able to provide now.

ps: I am interviewing at Google next month! ehheheheheheh 😉