Introduction to Mobile Application Development in Android

by Richard S. Stansbury, PhD

Over the course of a two day period, you will be introduced to many basic mobile application development concepts.  We will develop using Android because its development tools are freely available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX.  It also is supported by a large market share of the smartphone market.

Learning Outcomes for this Camp's Three Lessons are:

• Camper shall be able to implement a basic mobile application using Android Studio.
• Campers shall be able to demonstrate that application both using the Android Virtual Device simulator and an actual Android Device.
• Campers shall be able to define the common Android widgets and how they are used within an application.
• Campers shall be able to utilize several of the basic widgets including TextView, EditText, and Button.
• Campers shall be able to utilize at least one list-type widget such as Spinner.
• Campers shall be able to organize widgets on their device using one of several layouts including: Relative Layout, Linear Layout, and Table Layout.
• Campers shall be able to define what an intent is and how it is used to "launch" other activities implicitly or explicitly.
• Campers shall be able to discuss data storage options on their device.
• Campers shall be able to discuss the available sensors and how to access those sensors within their application

Required Software:

1. Java JDK  7 64-bit (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1880260.html) - note MUST BE JDK 7.X, 64 BIT.
2. Android Studio (https://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html)
3. Google USB Driver (https://developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb.html)
4. Intel HAXM Driver (https://software.intel.com/en-us/android/articles/installation-instructions-for-intel-hardware-accelerated-execution-manager-windows)

Lesson #1: Thursday Afternoon

• Introductions
• Android Application Overview (Structure, File Organization, etc.) - live demo
  • Slides: Activities, Intents, and the Life Cycle
• Android Layouts
  • Slides: Android Layouts
• Android Basic Widgets
  • Slides: Basic Widgets
• Demos: Layout and Widget Demo Apps

Build Activity #1: My First Application - https://developer.android.com/training/basics/firstapp/index.html

Lesson #2: Friday Morning

• Adapters and Lists
  • Slides: Advanced Widgets - Lists and Adapters
• Data Storage
  • Slides: File Storage and Access
• Demos: Storage and Advanced Widget Demos

Build Activity #2: Map Viewer

Lesson #3: Friday Afternoon

• Sensors
  • Slides: Sensors - Part 1 and Sensors Part 2
• Demos: Sensor Demos 
• Design and Advanced Features - Discussion and Live Demos

Build Activity #3: Add Location Sensor to Map Viewer App