Student Time Logger

[weaversam8]

Interesting idea I thought of today that I will develop, I am going to build an app that allows students to check themselves in and out using a PIN number, but can also scan barcodes. That way you can stand at the door and check other students in as well.

[meg]

Originally Posted by weaversam8

Interesting idea I thought of today that I will develop, I am going to build an app that allows students to check themselves in and out using a PIN number, but can also scan barcodes. That way you can stand at the door and check other students in as well.

I'm not really sure how that's much different than mine, other than that we don't give students admin access (to stop them from being able to sign in unless they're in the lab). It does use a pin number, it just happens that the pin number is the number used on the barcode. If you wanted students to simply enter a number, you could do that. If you want students to be able to log each other in, just give them admin access. Maybe I'm missing something?

[itsjustmrb]

We use mytimestation.com, they gave us a free account and can be used with an old iphone, iPad or android device. It also has a wide variety of reports to run or export to excel.

Mr B

[Bryan Herbst]

Thanks for providing this application!

I've been playing with a little bit for my team and I like it so far. I set it up on a heroku instance pretty quickly and painlessly.

For anyone else getting started and wondering how to set up your first users, just go to the registration page. The first user you create will be an administrator and everyone from then on will default to a standard user.

It would be nice to provide a little more flexibility- For example, it would be nice not to have to fork the project to change the team number on the welcome screen.

If we decide to go forward with using this, I will probably also rename the "school" grouping to simply be "group." We only have one school, and I think it would be interesting to separate students by their subteam (build, programming, etc.). Not something I would expect you to change because this is obviously what works for your team, but just something that was on my mind.

Similarly, I would imaging that a lot of teams would want to customize the registration process to either add or remove certain fields (such as the "tool use forms" checkbox).

[meg]

Originally Posted by Tanis

It would be nice to provide a little more flexibility- For example, it would be nice not to have to fork the project to change the team number on the welcome screen.

Were you thinking database variables? I could probably do something like that.

Originally Posted by Tanis

If we decide to go forward with using this, I will probably also rename the "school" grouping to simply be "group." We only have one school, and I think it would be interesting to separate students by their subteam (build, programming, etc.). Not something I would expect you to change because this is obviously what works for your team, but just something that was on my mind.

I have no objection to changing the names. Group could be a school as easily as a specific team. I'll see how easy it will be to modify since we've already got a database with values.

Originally Posted by Tanis

Similarly, I would imaging that a lot of teams would want to customize the registration process to either add or remove certain fields (such as the "tool use forms" checkbox).

That's a FANTASTIC idea! Custom checkboxes. New database tables, definitely doable though. I'll see what I can do. Maybe not in the registration itself, but instead as an associated object?

I'm glad you're liking it so far, if you have any more suggestions please don't hesitate to let me know!

[Bryan Herbst]

Originally Posted by meg

Were you thinking database variables? I could probably do something like that.

That would definitely work. If you wanted to keep it simple, you could also make it a part of the application config along with the other settings that are currently available.

I definitely don't mean for you to turn this into a complete CMS type of system where you can customize every page to your liking, but those were just some of the things that I was considering tweaking myself for our team.

Of course, if you are fine with the added complexity some of this would add, I wouldn't complain

[meg]

Originally Posted by Tanis

That would definitely work. If you wanted to keep it simple, you could also make it a part of the application config along with the other settings that are currently available.

I definitely don't mean for you to turn this into a complete CMS type of system where you can customize every page to your liking, but those were just some of the things that I was considering tweaking myself for our team.

Of course, if you are fine with the added complexity some of this would add, I wouldn't complain

Compared to some of the scripts I write, that's not complex at all! I thought I had put the team name in the config file, I must have forgotten that reference to it. Should be easy enough to do once I get home.

As for the Tool Use option, I was just trying to find a good way to track permission slips for our team, so I figured why not! Group Vs. School is just a matter of finding the name and replacing it, ultimately it doesn't change the main body of the code.

[meg]

Originally Posted by Tanis

That would definitely work. If you wanted to keep it simple, you could also make it a part of the application config along with the other settings that are currently available.

I definitely don't mean for you to turn this into a complete CMS type of system where you can customize every page to your liking, but those were just some of the things that I was considering tweaking myself for our team.

Of course, if you are fine with the added complexity some of this would add, I wouldn't complain

Features added. Instead of the tool use/code of conduct in the user, you can create "forms". Any thing from permission forms, to knowing how to use a specific form or entry fees if your team has them.

You can now set team name/number in the settings document as well as the name for the "school" field, if you'd like to change it to group, or team or whatever you'd like to call it.

Hopefully, it all works slightly better now!

[Bryan Herbst]

Looks even more awesome! Thanks!

[meg]

Happy to do it. Let me know if you have any more suggestions or requests

[adammiller3122]

Originally Posted by meg

Adam, I'm not really sure I understand your post. I was showing my team's solution to the problem and offering it up to other teams should they choose to use it.

I guess that I was also doing the same. I was saying that I also have one out there and that there are many ways to do the same thing. I tried yours out and I would just like to basically add in there what one benefit of the one that I created is that the reason that we created it is because we wanted to track not only the total hours, but how many hours we spend on each aspect of the robot all the way down to the different components. I do like yours for ease of use as the TM only needs to input the ID number or even scan the barcode for that matter!