Not driving at full power causes the Sphero to lose 5 health of its 100 health per stagnant second.  However, detected collisions (which seemingly become more likely the higher the power becomes) will decrease the Sphero’s health by 10 per reported collision.  The Sphero’s health, aside from the health bar, is shown by the Sphero itself: above 75% and the Sphero is green; between 35% and 75% it becomes yellow; at 35% and under, the Sphero turns red.  Collisions are reported with a blue flash alongside of the significant drop in the health bar.

The primary hurdles in getting the app to run included bringing all of the components to work together through threading and synchronizing, fine-tuning Sphero’s rather lackluster collision detection, and finding a way to stop the app from crashing on exit.

On resuming the app reconnects to the Sphero by itself, though not transparently. The app is partially set up so that some extension would allow resuming previous progress, but this would likely involve storing a thread(s), multiple variables, handling the SurfaceHandler, and a few other caveats so we weren’t able to effectively implement this (the app simply runs a new game if you exit and start it again).

Video (terrible quality): http://tinypic.com/r/v4ot35/6

Motorala StarTAC

Facts from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_StarTAC

Released:  1996
Estimated time I owned: 2001-2002

*94mm x 55mm x 19mm

*88 grams

*smallest cell phone available a its release

*one of the first cell phones to use vibrate

I remember getting this cell phone in 5^th grade.  I definitely did not need a cell phone and was pretty much the only one of my friends that had one.  I believe the only reason I got one was because I was jealous my older siblings got them.  What did I think was cool about it?  I thought it was cool I could make songs from the key tones.

Samsung SPH-A500

Facts from http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=158

Released: 2002
Estimated time I owned 2002-2004

*88mm x 50mm x 23.4mm

*102 grams

*downloadable ringtones/wallpapers

*internet access

The majority of time I can remember having this phone was in 7^th grade.  This phone was definitely cool for its time.  Few of my friends had cell phones, so I remember almost exclusively using it for its games and its Internet access.  The Internet was absolutely terrible from what I remember.  I remember only certain websites being able to load and they would take forever to load them.  But hey, I could use AOL instant messenger and send/receive maybe one message every 5 minutes.  That was better than the 0 IMs my friends could send/receive without a cell phone.

Sanyo PM-8200
Facts from http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=508

Released: 2004

Estimated time I owned: 2004-2005

*85mm x 47mm x 25.9mm

*103 grams

*camera (res: VGA 640×480)

*waterproof?

This was one of my favorite phones I owned.  I used this phone in 8^th grade and many of my friends started getting phones at this time.  I remember this phone having text messaging, but I don’t remember ever using it.  I think actual phone calls were preferred at this time (imagine that).  What was really cool about this phone was that there was a screen on the front that displayed the camera when it was shut.  I was able to take creepy pictures/videos of people in class when it was closed and I remember having a good time with that.  I also remember dropping it in a hot tub and it was not phased…take that iPhone.

Motorola i860
Facts from http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=559

Released: 2005
Estimated time I owned: 2005-2007

*88mm x 50mm x 25.7mm

*135 grams

*25 MB internal storage

*video (up to 10 seconds!)

I had this phone for the first half of my high school career.  This phone was built like a fortress.  It was very durable and could take some damage (I tested this).  I remember it having a button on the side of the hinge that flipped it open, so I thought I was cool doing that all the time.  The display was definitely an upgrade from my previous phone with an impressive resolution of 176 x 220 pixels.  I was also able to capture some awesome 10 second videos.

Samsung UpStage M620

Facts from http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=1112

Released: 2007
Estimated time I owned: 2007-2009

*103mm x 44mm x 9.4 mm

*73 grams

*53 MB internal storage + 64 MB card

*MMS

I had this phone for the remainder of my high school career.  This phone was the definition of looking cooler than it was.  This was probably the worst phone I ever owned.  At first, I thought the fact that it had two sides with two screens (one side was meant for music) was cool, but it proved to be extremely inefficient and annoying.  The screen on the side that had the keys on it was about a half an inch in height, which made it impossible to read more than 2 lines of text, so you had to flip to the opposite side to read texts and then flip back to write texts.  That wouldn’t have been that bad if it didn’t consistently freeze on flips.  It also had Internet that never worked.  The only thing was good about this phone was that it was extremely small and lightweight.

iPhone 3GS

Facts from http://support.apple.com/kb/SP565?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Released: 2009
Estimated time I owned: 2009-2011

*115.5mm x 62.1mm x 12.3mm

*135 grams

*32GB memory
*Wi-Fi, 3G

*video recording

*3 megapixel camera

Getting an iPhone was revolutionary in my cell phone history.  It was the first time I had a phone with working Internet.  The iPhone replaced my iPod and any kind of hand held gaming system I used.  The amount of applications available was overwhelming and let’s face it, I was obsessed.

iPhone 4S
Facts rom http://support.apple.com/kb/SP643

Released: 2011

Estimated time I owned: 2011-NOW

*115.2mm x 58.6mm x 9.3mm

*140 grams

*32GB memory

*Wi-Fi, 3G

*8 megapixel camera

*retina display

I can’t really say that much has changed between the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4S.  The 4S is pretty much the same, just faster, a different look, and a few extra features like Siri.  I love this phone and could not see myself diverging from the iPhone line.  The elegancy and simplicity truly makes it a great device.

2.  A voice/sound manipulation app.  An example is the “Inception” app, which distorts sounds picked up from the microphone.

3.  An application that involves your music.  I don’t have a specific idea for this app, but I think you could do something interesting things involving music.

4.  A game involving artificial intelligence.  I’d be interested in creating an app that involves the computer to make decisions like in chess for example.

5.  Some kind of rpg app.  I think it would be cool to make an app that has simple combat and involves movement of a character.