Computer Science

Computer Science at Mass Academy is unlike any other Computer Science class. Mrs. Tarrico, the Computer Science teacher, strives to teach her students the AP Computer Science A curriculum and more. A fun fact about Mass Academy is that we are the first school in the United States to participate in the Apps For Good Project (more to be posted later on). Although it might not seem like it at first, Computer Science is integrated all around us, especially as technology continues to advance tremendously.

Computer Science Federal Tax Rate

Prior to this assignment, I always thought that Computer Science was not a subject that would have many applications; however, I could not have been more wrong. During this lab assignment, I analyzed how organizations, even as large as the United States Government, utilize Computer Science to optimize taxes. In fact, I had completed this lab while I was learning how to integrate if-else statements. Fortunately, this programming concept has the capability to enhance the versatility of numerous coding segments. Thankfully, the course is cleverly designed to not only place an emphasis on how to code, but also on showing the applications of this code as well.

Computer Science Line Art Lab

Aside from just learning about concepts mentioned within the AP Curriculum, Computer Science at Mass Academy is designed to teach concepts beyond the base level; in fact, one of the extensions that we learned was “Applet.” Applet is an extension that has the capability of drawing different shapes, lines, and figures. Through learning Applet on more simpler models, I was able to create the illusion that is on the document on the left. While it might be shocking at first, the following Applet actually has not a single curved line. Using different mathematical equations and for loops, I was able to create the illusion that these sets of lines create the following design. In the future, I would like to add color and other features to elevate the complexity of the assignment.

Apps For Good

Problem Statement and Target Audience

Photo of the GOAT (Mr.Presscot), Vasu, and Sanat

Humans rely on one factor over all others within the world today: language. Through bringing people together, society capitalized on languages, often English, to express ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. However, some individuals in society—for various reasons—struggle with learning a respective language in their area, which greatly decreases the opportunities that are present to them. With the ever increasing rates of immigration in the United States, the English language barrier has been made much more prevalent in today's society. Coupled with the minimal to close to zero knowledge of the language, immigrant children especially are directly impacted by this lack of knowledge when they are faced with the task of attending school. Thus, my team aspires to create an application that allows for these individuals to strengthen their language acquisition skills, particularly with reading comprehension and pronunciation.

Our Solution and Minimum Viable Product

Recognizing that competitors such as Duolingo are extremely powerful on the market, we aimed to include one feature in our application that can differentiate us from all of the rest: teacher usability. From asking ESL teachers for important implementations to consider and our Foreign Language teacher for vital factors to include to make our app successful, we began to create our Minimum Viable Product (MVP). While our initial MVP altered since we had overestimated the amount of progress we could make in the allocated time, it became clear that we ended up having 3 clear goals. Firstly, creating “fill in the blank” questions that could be displayed to the user, while simultaneously they receive feedback on their responses. Secondly, including positive affirmations, since these are essential to growth in language acquisition. Finally, integrating a pronunciation features that provides a similar style of feedback to the user. Through using an adopted random question selection algorithm for words and questions, we were able to create an effective system that optimized toward not only achieving, but going beyond our MVP. In the future, we aspire to have the teacher system implemented, allowing us to create a new market for individuals

Photo of Middle School Nationals Logo

Apps For Good Poster