IWT Lessons and Experiences CS Dept Group, Texas A&M University John Bracy & Yang Yu (CPSC 311) Jamie Graham (CPSC 485) Osvaldo Lau & Chris Wood (CPSC 431) Mark Mathis & Guang Song (CPSC 620) Nancy Amato (Faculty Advisor, CPSC 620)

September 1999May 2000November 1999January 2000March 2000Present Project Timeline October 8, group formation, eBook project idea September 17-18, Technology in Support of Families Workshop October 20, eBook abandonded December 14, iCook design document October 28, Kitchen Assistant proposed (iCook) February 18, Zope platform chosen February 10, MySQL database chosen March 20, Demo for Anita Borg May 1, Development Pause June 19-20, IWT VDC conference

After Technology in Support of Families Workshop….. Our group brainstormed about ideas coming out of the workshop We initially focussed on two or three ideas: –electronic book –video phone/wall –electronic planner/scheduler, home inventory We decided to research these more: –try to come up with some more specific plans – find out what was currently available

The eBook Our first idea was an electronic book –It would be lightweight and portable, –resemble a real book, –allow you to make notes in the margins, –and interface with other computers. We thought it was a very good idea. As it turns out, the idea was so good that someone else had already developed it!

The Kitchen Assistant Our next idea was a kitchen assistant –It would find recipes given certain ingredients, –suggest other recipes to make a meal based on your tastes and what ingredients you have, –make a personalized shopping list based on your inventory and meal selections, –and interactively help you prepare your meal. We also thought this was a very good idea. And original, too!

More Details: Interactive Cooking Assistance voice recognition: you can ask it to tell/show you ingredients of a recipe or techniques, or tell you the steps of a recipe it can show you a picture of a onion when you are preparing several dishes simultaneously, it can help you decide when to start what. it can ‘alert’ you when something is ready

More Details: Recipe Database If you feel like Italian, it can show you your favorite recipes, suggest new ones, or let you search through them all If you don’t like bell peppers, it can filter out all recipes containing them, or suggest alternative ingredients You can add your grandmother’s special recipes or search for recipes contributed by someone you know It can filter out recipes for which you don’t have the ingredients

More Details: Inventory it can keep track of when and where you bought something and how much you paid for it –if you last bought milk 4 weeks ago, you need more –it can tell you the cheapest place you’ve bought oranges –it can suggest to you that you might be missing a particular ingredient for a recipe –it can make shopping lists - what you need for the week’s selected recipes, what is old, etc.

iCook Design Phase By December we had produced a lengthy design document for our kitchen assistant. –Software Requirements –Object Model –Dynamic Models –Interface Model Now that we had the design worked out, it was time to starting implementing.

iCook Implementation Phase Before we could begin implementing we had to choose the tools we wanted to use. We chose to use Zope with MySQL. Zope provides the front end interface, web server, and development environment. –Zope is an excellent choice for group projects. MySQL provides the back end database. –MySQL is great because it’s free!

Current Status When Anita Borg came to visit we had a lot of the system in place, but unfortunately not a lot of the functionality operational. We had implemented the kitchen assistant as a web page, so we could show a demo of our design and future plans, but finally we expected the product to work as a program itself, not as a web page. By semester’s end we weren’t much further along and everyone had gone their separate ways.

A Screenshot This is what the iCook interface currently looks like.

Conclusions Good Things –We spent a lot of time discussing the project and coming up with (we think) a good design. Bad Things –It is much harder to implement something than it is to think of it, specially when you have to learn something new. –Working in a group can be difficult (and fun too, but maybe that’s part of the problem!)