Dan Ristea

Entrepreneurship

Coached three Gen-Y app development teams to Technovation Challenge, an international entrepreneurship competition held in CA.

Arrive, the 2013 high school team won 1st Place out of 117 teams and $10,000 in seed funding for their mobile check-in app.

FieldTripper, the 2014 middle school team won 1st Place out of 150 teams and $5,000 in seed funding for their app, which improves the K-12 field trip experience through real-time permission slip signing, live bus tracking, and one swing attendance.

SafeTeen, the 2014 high school team placed in Top 8 out of 225 teams for their web app on bringing free services to teenagers with the plan to identify teens' needs to allow non-profits to open new branches and pivot based on demand.

Tags: Startups, Mentorship, Collaboration, PM, K-12, Android, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, jQuery Mobile, OOP, Google Maps API, Google Analytics, Robotics, QR Codes, Bluetooth Integration

APIs & Web Services

Earthquake Finder

This is a web application which takes as input a location name (city / state / country / continent), identifies the last ten major earthquakes which occured at this location, and plots them on a Google Map. The application calls the Google Maps API to retrieve the coordinates for the bounding box of the given location. It then uses this information to call the GeoNames Recent Earthquakes Webservice and retrieve data about the last ten earthquakes -by order of magnitude - that occurred at the given location. Markers representing the different earthquakes are then dropped on a Google Map. Details about each earthquake are available by clicking the respective marker.

Tags: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, jQuery Mobile, OOP, Google Maps API, GeoNames

Responsive Design

Elevator Controller Model

Here you will find five iterations of an elevator controller programmed to run on iPads. This project shows how an elevator negotiates calls to different floors. The UI of the controller has 48 buttons allowing access to 43 stories, a restaurant, a gym and functionality calls such as open/close doors, and help. All the buttons have user feedback, and the information panel displays the direction of the elevator, and the current floor. The design is responsive and has been programmed for regular iPad portrait/landscape, and iPad mini portrait modes. From a programming standpoint six cases have been explored. Click here for the full description.

Tags: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, OOP, Responsive Design, iPad

Research

Desktop vs. Mobile Learning

This comparative study focused on developing a language learning environment personalized for mobile and desktop devices and testing its effectiveness through a foreign language lesson. The goals of the lesson focused on learning basic vocabulary and language structures through a video recorded dialogue, a vocabulary matching game and a sentence structure scramble activity.

Tags: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, Cookies, Session Variables

PhoneGap

iCanvas Pro

This is a simple and intuitive iPad sketching application made using Phonegap, jQuery Mobile, HTML5 and CSS3. The application allows users to create sketches using programmed brushes, upload pictures, save projects as .jpg and .png files (preserving transparency), and share sketches with friends by email.

Tags: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, jQuery Mobile, OOP, PhoneGap, iOS, PHP, MySQL, WordPress

Data-Sharing Platform

inTime | Teaching using Mobile Devices

Many schools are deploying one-to-one iPad programs. Teachers use apps and games to teach their subject matter, but do not have access to student data. So what do students learn? The material, or how to beat the game? I set out to answer three questions:

1. How can teachers engage students through mobile devices?
2. How can teachers tell what is happening on the other end of the screen? Is the student making progress?
3. If teachers can answer the previous two questions, how will this change teaching and learning?

The result was inTime, a web application personalized for iPads and desktop computers connected to Smartboards. The main engine of the application is an HTML5 canvas, which students use to illustrate their answers to teacher posed questions. The project is now live and being tested by teachers to determine the course of its development.