This week BluePay delivered our Final Design Review presentation to American Express. We were so excited to show the sponsors our finished product and how far we`ve come from the beginning of the year. Based on the feedback that we received, the sponsors loved it! They were really impressed with our app design and the overall feedback that we received from our participants. The team was really happy with how AMEX reacted!
After the event, we reminded our sponsors that we needed them to read over and sign our reports and we can now confirm that they have done so. There are only a few things left to finalize but the course is effectively over once we have our end-of-year meeting with the IPPD director. This has been an incredible learning experience for BluePay and we appreciate all of the support and resources along the way. We have gained and learned so much throughout the project. Thank you IPPD, AMEX liaisons, and our team coach for helping us out and providing us with an incredible opportunity to showcase our engineering skills!
This week BluePay delivered our FDR peer review presentation and we got a lot of positive feedback. Majority of the audience thought that we did an outstanding job and could clearly understand the story of our project. We have spent a lot of our time working on the FDR report and final deliverables before the FDR event on Tuesday. We are so excited to show AMEX and all other attendees our project and what we have been able to accomplish over the past eight months.
Within this blog post, BluePay`s final poster and final video is included. They both display the story of BluePay`s project but through different mediums. On the left hand side of the poster, the problem statement, methods, and results can be found. The team was tasked by AMEX to develop an app that allows customers to conduct transactions without having to take out their wallet in order to improve customer experience. To accomplish this, we employed the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to conduct the transaction from a distance. To test the success of our project, we ran participant trials where the participants were given a Pixel 3 smartphone with our app pre-installed and were asked to undergo our system.
The participants were also given pre and post-survey questions that asked them how much they agreed with the written statement based on the scale provided to them. The results of the trials showed that all participants agreed in some capacity that our app is easy to use, the process was fast, they felt safe in regards to COVID-19 with our app, and that they would prefer using our app over physical credit cards.
The middle of the poster displays the main accomplishment of the project and also contains a QR code to our blogs. The right hand side of the poster displays additional information of the project. . It takes 1.46 seconds for the customer to be notified that a BLE beacon has been found when they enter the signal range. It takes 1.5 seconds for the customers name to appear on the point of sale system from when the customer enters the signal range. It takes .85 seconds for the point of sale system to confirm the transaction after the customer has paid. The QR code contains a link that takes viewers to a YouTube video of our project demo. The last bit of information shows that BluePay was far under budget and saved money.
This week the team completed the project video draft and presented it to the class. We got a lot of good feedback and the changes that we have to make are minor. These changes include adding comments to the demo portion, shortening the intro, and editing the quotes page.
The majority of our focus now is working towards the FDR event. BluePay has finished the app and the prototype to turn over to AMEX. Now we are just working on the FDR report and FDR presentation. These two items have taken up the majority of our time as we want to be as thorough and detailed as possible. Each team member knows what they have to complete.
Next week BluePay will present our peer review FDR presentation to hear what our classmates think and to make any changes before our last presentation of the semester during FDR. We look forward to showing the class and our sponsors everything that we have accomplished!
On Sunday BluePay underwent the second round of customer testing on an older population. Just like the first trial with college aged students, BluePay had the participants fill out a pre-survey, undergo the study with our system, then fill out a post-survey. We got more positive feedback and many of the responses aligned with the responses that we got from the younger population. These responses included that the participants would recommend BluePay`s app and that the process was easy and efficient.
Over the weekend BluePay also completed our project poster and got approval from our team coach and project liaison. We are now in full swing trying to finish up the other pieces of the project like the FDR report and the video. The last piece of our prototype that needs to be complete is the card swipe functionality. The video is taking a lot longer than anticipated because nobody on the team has any background in video editing but we have made good progress!
We`re about two and a half weeks out from the FDR event and were excited to show off our finished product to everyone. We can`t believe that the semester is already almost over!
This week BluePay attended the prototype inspection day 2 event! We met with 5 different groups of judges and presented our demo to them. The vast majority of the feedback that we received was positive. The concerns that a few of the judges had involved clearly demonstrating the full capabilities of the BLE beacons, being more clear about the security portion of the credit cards, and the visuals within the presentation. The judges were all convinced that we will be able to complete our project on time!
During the week we have also continued to work on all of the IPPD deliverables along with the completion of our app. These deliverables include the FDR report, video, and poster. The large majority of our time is being spent on completing these tasks.
Unable to complete it last weekend, BluePay will undergo the second round of customer testing in Tampa this weekend with an older population to see how different age groups view our app. We will continue to work on all of the IPPD deliverables and the completion of our app. We`re in the home stretch now!
This week BluePay managed to finally complete our customer/participant study! We all met up on Saturday for the first time to set up our system and get participants to use our app. We ended up getting our study IRB approved and worked with the IPPD staff in order to get everything set up. The trials went well! We got positive feedback from our participants and when they were asked to describe our app, they used words like simple, easy, efficient. This is exactly what we were looking for!
We also had the peer review prototype inspection day on Tuesday and we got a lot of good feedback on our presentation. We included a video of a live rendition of a participant trial from Saturday and the audience said they loved it! We think that over time we have gotten better and better at presenting and showing off our project.
Next week we have prototype inspection day. We are excited to see what the judges have to say about our nearly completed system. We are so close to finishing up our app and we plan to have it completely down by the end of next week. Once the app is finished, we will be able to focus on the FDR report, video, and poster. There are only 5 weeks left and we still have a lot of work on our hands!
This week the team has worked towards completing the first prototype of our project. We have worked towards putting the finishing touches together on our app and integrating all of the separate components together. We have been working with the IPPD staff in order to find a location to undergo our participant trials over the weekend. As long as no last minute problems arise, we plan to finally undergo our first round of customer testing this weekend! We can finally show off our project to individuals and hear their feedback on the system! This is what all of our work has led towards.
Once we finish undergoing the trials, BluePay will analyze the data and will improve our system accordingly. If another round of testing is needed, we will complete it. Next week, we will focus on improving our system and getting ready for prototype inspection day. We think that the judges will be impressed with our work this year! We are excited to show off all of our hard work to everyone!
This week BluePay has made tremendous strides to the completion of our first functioning prototype. The integration testing has gone better than expected and the system is nearly complete. We have also been trying to fine-tune the trilateration algorithm and find a way to pinpoint the customer’s location. Once a few more functions of the app are complete, BluePay will be able to undergo customer trials. We have also worked on fixing any requests to the IRB application that the reviewer has left us, along with submitting our UF Research Resumption COVID form.
We plan to undergo the customer trials at the end of next week. The team will meet, set up our system, and have our participants use our system where they will fill out pre and post-surveys to gauge their opinion. This is what our project has been leading up to and we`re excited to show off our work to our participants! We can`t wait to see how they feel about our system! We will continue to work on the FDR report outline and the storytelling video in the next few weeks.
This week BluePay delivered our QRB2 presentation to a panel of coaches! We got a lot of good feedback from them and the most important piece of advice that we were given was to reassess our project schedule. We had planned to finish the coding of the app and the corresponding testing by the end of the week. However, we were informed by the committee that based on the progress that we had made, this was highly unlikely to finish both. So taking the committee`s advice into mind, the team met and addressed their concerns and changed things around in the project schedule that works for everyone without delaying the project!
Next week BluePay will work incredibly hard to finish the coding of the app and to integrate all of the components of the project together. We plan to have the integration complete by March 7th. Once this is finished, we can finally undergo our customer trials and get participant feedback on our system! We plan to have the first round of evaluations and data analysis completed by March 17th, just in time for prototype inspection day!
This week BluePay has worked hard to try and finish the survey questions and IRB application. The team has also worked on completing the other portions of the app by next week so that we can finally integrate our system and begin participant/customer trials. This week we`ve worked on trying to complete the more difficult portions of the app in order to give ourselves more slack time. We are looking forward to conducting the customer trials so that we can finally show off our project to a few people and hear what they have to say!
Next week we have our second QRB event. We are excited to show the panels of coaches everything that we have worked on and all of our testing plans in order to hear their feedback and improve our project. We are still working on the presentation and documents that need to be included. We are excited to continue working on the project and satisfy all parties involved!
