First Sprint Review, Firebase Progress, and the Road Ahead

Overview of Sprint 1 Achievements

This week marked an important transition point in our Capstone journey. We wrapped up Sprint 1 and held our first official sprint review with our new instructor and project shareholder, Patrick Kelly. Patrick will be guiding us through the rest of the Capstone process, and our team has officially scheduled recurring sprint reviews every Friday at 7 PM.

During this initial meeting, we presented our project concept, Jira board, and Sprint 1 deliverables, all of which Patrick reviewed with great enthusiasm. He was particularly impressed by our app’s inclusivity focus and how accessibility considerations have been woven into our design—credit to Cassandra, who led that research and ensured our UI supports neurodivergent, color-blind, and dyslexic users. Patrick also encouraged us to explore the connection between our app’s purpose and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which could strengthen our value proposition and create a more holistic experience for users.

Firebase Setup and Task Management

One of my primary focuses this sprint was the Firebase configuration and integration. I finalized and presented six tasks related to our backend setup—configuring Firebase, linking the Android app, verifying connections, and confirming data access permissions—ensuring our infrastructure is stable and ready for upcoming authentication and storage features.

Patrick reviewed all items and approved them as “Verified Complete,” marking the successful close of Story 1.2: Connect Project with Firebase Console. Firebase is now fully connected to our Android project, setting the foundation for user authentication and data storage in future sprints.

Although I unfortunately forgot to capture screenshots during this process, making this post a bit lighter on visuals, the focus this week was primarily technical troubleshooting and backend preparation. I’ll make sure to include visual updates for next week’s post as we move into front-end integration

Resolving Challenges and Planning for Sprint 2

After wrapping up Sprint 1, our team conducted the Sprint 2 Planning Meeting. We discussed what went well, what needed improvement, and assigned our next set of deliverables

• I’m leading Story 2.1: Implement Firebase Google Sign-In,

• Stephen is handling Opening Screens (Story 7.8),

• Cassandra owns Navigation System (Story 7.7), and

• Velma is managing QA/Testing and Support Email Setup.

We also appointed Velma as our Merge Master, responsible for all pull requests into the dev and main branches. This ensures smoother version control and prevents unnecessary conflicts. Our first attempt at merging highlighted the importance of this role—our .gitignore file was missing key exclusions, causing some local build files to be committed accidentally. Once identified, we fixed the configuration and established a cleaner workflow for future merges.

Balancing "Historical Archetypes and Mythology" and Coding

Outside of Capstone, I’ve also been balancing the workload from my Historical Archetypes and Mythology course. This class has been particularly reading-intensive, with nearly fourteen assignments this week. While it’s not directly related to our project, I find the course fascinating because it explores how mythological archetypes influence storytelling, culture, and even modern technology branding—something that indirectly ties into how we design user experiences.

Managing both courses at once has definitely tested my time management and focus, but it’s also been rewarding to see the parallels between creative narrative structure and software development planning. Both require structure, clarity, and understanding of human behavior—just expressed in different ways.