devCodeCamp Supporting Startups

Today the devCodeCamp Support Startups project with Seiva Technologies, Data Holdings Inc, and Stack 41 begins.

The devCodeCamp Support Startups project with Seiva Technologies, Data Holdings, Inc, and Stack 41 begins today. This project was born out of a trip to Data Holdings state of the art facility here in Milwaukee to learn about their collaboration with Stack 41, a cloud services provider. Their concept was simple but powerful: offer free business technology services to local startup companies. It’s called NE Startup and is an amazing opportunity for any local startup that needs support in getting their ideas to market. Data Holdings will provide the physical infrastructure, while Stack 41 comes to the table with the expertise and management to run the applications for the startups. The best part is approved startups can receive anything a company might need to get up and running, which consists of significant specs for free, for life. Wow! Virtual machines, storage, bandwidth, firewalls, web hosting, file storage, backups and more will be included.

devCodeCamp was more than happy to be selected as a startup development organization and couldn’t wait to get more involved. A report published in June of 2015 showed Milwaukee ranks dead last in the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation ranking for start-up activity. It’s been a challenge for some time. Wisconsin creates great talent, we just aren’t very good at keeping it. devCodeCamp applied to locate our Software Development Bootcamp in the Ward4 Startup Hub because it just made sense to be there. We are creating the people that can be a difference maker in getting out of the basement of the startup activity rankings. Those people are the developers that are able to take an idea and turn it into reality. Today, with Seiva Technologies, Data Holdings, and Stack 41, we are doing just that.

devCodeCamp Lead Instructor Ben Towal heads up the Launch Meeting

(devCodeCamp grads & developers front-left Dan Yang, back-left Robert Moon, back-right James Gille, center of table Sam Wesley of Seiva Technologies)

devCodeCamp Program Ops Manager Paul Jirovetz received a call from the Head of Marketing/Co-Founder of Seiva Technologies, Sam Wesley, asking for some help building out their product. Without hesitation, the answer was yes. Seiva Technologies builds smart, skin-tight, garments to quantify the physical therapy and athletic training markets. By integrating a network of sensors and other electronics into spandex material, Seiva is able to provide therapists and trainers alike with real-time, quantitative, bio-metrics of their patients. The one thing they were missing was the mobile application used by coaches and trainers to log in to see and manipulate their athletes’ data. We recruited three devCodeCamp grads and all they had to do was learn a new language, create the database and user interface, and accomplish it all in eight days. It’s day one and our grads James Gille, Dan Yang, and Robert Moon are ready. We’ll keep you up to date on the progress.

Day 1

Robert, James and Dan hit the ground running. The team at Data Holding’s Inc and Stack 41 are incredible to work with getting the team set up was seamless and all systems are a go. So far the devCodeCamp graduate team has built the skeleton for the iOS app, which will serve as the user interface for Seiva’s biometric clothing technology. They have set up the server and database too, which will synchronize and save all of the athletes’ data. Next up: integrating the biometric module to the app over bluetooth and integrating the app with the server. These guys move quick.

Days 2, 3, and 4

Seiva Technologies recently walked away with IQ award from BizTimesMKE, while the devCodeCamp graduate development team has been stationed on the loft in the main lab at our Ward4MKE bootcamp. The team also added a new member, recent Cardinal Stritch graduate and The Commons participant Theresa Le will be lending her graphic design skills to the startup project.

By working on different tasks, Robert, James, and Dan were collectively able to cover plenty of ground in three days. Here’s what the development team has completed and what they are currently working on:

All of the screens for the iOS app are done with routing built out, while the log in, sign up, and password reset views are finished. The development team is still working on some of the user interface details for the main screen, but they are coming close to completion.
The team is running a development server as they prepare to migrate to the production server. Part of that process is getting security implemented on the production server so users can communicate safely with the outside world, something the team will have done before the end of the week
The database is fully operational, which allows the development team to accurately test the app’s functionality.
While working on checking off features, the team has been busy building unit tests and UI tests to ensure the app will be clean of bugs on launch.

Robert, James, and Dan have made amazing progress so far, while also balancing interviewing for their first software developer job. Any company would be lucky to have them on their team. With that said, they still have plenty to accomplish before reaching the minimum viable product.

Days 5, 6, and 7

No time to rest for Robert, James, and Dan. The development team continued their hard on Seiva’s iOS app, including putting in a full day on Saturday.

Day 5 updates:

Completed the session view, which will show an athlete’s muscle activity in real time. The screen contains graphs, images of the muscular structure of the human body, a toolbar on the bottom, and a navigation bar at the top. It also contains spacing proportions so the view will look the same on any version of the iPad.
The history view, which will show an athlete’s historical data, now contains an added athlete, and the colors were updated the give the view life.
After spending many hours on getting the production server up and running, it is fully functional and connected to the project.
Continued the creation of unit tests and UI tests to rid the app of bugs.

Day 6 updates:

The development team elected to use Bluetooth to connect the iOS app to the wearable technology. In order to achieve the feature, countless hours of research went into understanding Bluetooth.
Connected a sample project to the wearable technology using an older version of Bluetooth to begin testing the app.
Created a service module that can connect to a Bluetooth module that will be located inside the wearable technology.
Got provisioning on the iPad working, and fixed routing errors to ensure the ability to easily navigate throughout the app.
Accomplished the ability to scroll up, down, and sideways. This allows the prevention of the keypad covering up the views when typing.
Seiva’s logo added to all of the views.
The project begins coming to life with the app installed on the iPad.

Day 7 updates:

Added an athlete and session model.
The app has the ability to save and load sessions to ensure persistent data.
A play, stop, and pause button was added to the session view. The play button begins the recording of the data as an athlete moves, the pause button stops the recording, and the stop button will stop the recording and save the data to the database located on the server.
For now, the play button generates random session data. That will be updated soon to record actual athlete data in real time.
Data regarding an athlete’s hamstring or quadriceps switches when clicking between the two muscles on the session view.
Improved navigation with a back button that will stop the recording of a session.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is completed, which will ensure the data that passes between the app and the server is secure.

It is truly impressive how much Robert, James, and Dan have accomplished in merely a week. Next up for the development team is adding more models and the creation of athletes that can be stored in the server. We’ll have more updates as the Support Startup Project continues!

Day 8

Inching closer to the minimum viable product, Robert, James, and Dan have continued to impress with their outstanding work on Seiva’s iOS app. The following are a list of updates the development team has either completed or are currently working on:

Finished the athlete model, which allows the ability to save and retrieve athletes from the server.
The creation of an athlete in the app exists. The athlete will show up in the history view upon load.
Added a collapsible menu to the history view. The sub-menus consist of athletes (add an athlete), sessions (recorded data), and measurements (quadriceps, hamstrings, angles).
Sessions only display when an athlete is selected.
The ability for a user to reset a password works.
Added the option to cancel in the athlete view.
Unit tests and UI tests are constantly built to ensure the app will be free of glitches and bugs.
Working on allowing the ability to select multiple sessions at once. A user will be able to select one athlete, one measurement and two sessions at the same time. This allows to compare sessions to each other to see if an athlete reacts differently under certain conditions.

Despite plenty of work to do, the development team’s top-notch effort thus far has given them every reason to believe they will hit their goal of a minimum viable product.

Day 9

Well this arrived…

The development team was filled with excitement after they received the highly anticipated Bluetooth module, because they can begin working on connecting the iOS app to Seiva’s wearable technology. In continuation of their hard work, Robert, James, and Dan completed or are finishing up the following tasks:

At the end of Day 8, the development team was still working on the ability to select multiple sessions at the same time, something they were able to finish before calling it a day. A user can now select one athlete, one measurement, and two sessions at once.
The session view and session controller are complete, which allows the ability to save and load an athlete’s session to and from the database.
Tweaked the proportions of the history view in order to make the movability on the screen more flexible.
Added an athlete’s measurements to the history view.
Working on when a user clicks on the history view’s graph it shows an athlete’s measurements in that moment in time.
The table view, which is where a user can select an athlete, a session, and the measurement, on the history view is nearly complete.
Working on the ability to select a session and have it display on the graph.

With a big day ahead of them, the development will be putting in as many hours as possible towards getting the Bluetooth module and service module working together in order to bring the product to life.

Day 10

With nearly two weeks under their belt, Robert, James, and Dan have made serious progress on Seiva’s iOS app. The following are a list of updated tasks for the Support Startups project the development team has finished or are still working on:

Despite the challenges the table view brought, the development team’s hard work paid off as they were able to get it working. When users log in they are able to select an athlete, load an athlete’s sessions, select more than one session while only selecting one athlete, and select a measurement. While maneuvering through athletes, sessions, and measurements, the graph updates accordingly.
Added consist colors to the graph based on a user’s selection
Sessions and athletes load asynchronously
History view on the verge of being complete
Working on decoding the bytecode and getting the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) module to produce the necessary bytecode
Nearly done with tweaking the graphs so it shows the correct information at all times
Continued unit and UI testing to work out the bugs in the app

Next up for the development team is to continue working with the BLE module and the calibration view and controller…

Day 11 – We’ve got our MVP

All of the long hours and hard work paid off as Robert, James, and Dan completed the minimum viable product version of the iOS application for Seiva Technologies. Seiva will be the owner of an app that will allow coaches, trainers, and other personnel to visually see how an athlete’s hamstring or quadriceps handles under strenuous activity. Coaches and trainers will now be able to log in and view various forms of athlete data. Even better, they will be able to manipulate the data to compare sessions and see historical data of an athlete. Here’s what the dev team wrapped up:

Fixed labels for all of the graphs. For example, the history graph shows the appropriate labels for a better understanding of the data.
All of the features in the app load asynchronously.
Added a calibration profile model, controller and view for the ability to calibrate the device. Each athlete’s muscles are different, as well as, each muscle group is different. The calibration feature is a way to set what a muscle’s 100 percent is to ensure complete accuracy, no matter who the athlete is.

Gave the ability to see the status bar regardless of where a user is on the page
Ran more tests, cleaned up code, fixed bugs, checked password.

devCodeCamp could not be prouder of graduates Robert, James, and Dan for their dedication and impressive work ethic. Watching them grow as developers while helping improve the startup community in Milwaukee was a complete joy. The teams at Data Holdings INC and Stack41 were amazing and we’re looking forward to our next Support Startups challenge.