Besides some minor work, the project has started fairly slow. A major reason for this has been because there was a lack of available time to meet with our Maker mentor, Professor Hollingsworth. We've waited to order parts because we want Hollingsworth's opinion on components, sensors, and microcontrollers. One of the minors things that has been completed this month was the "temporary" logo of a doberman. We are considering buying the rights to the font for that logo as well. Until then, it cannot be published anywhere officially. Another minor update was touching up some of the previous Xcode files. Right now, most of the work has been done on the UI in the storyboard but, starting next month, we will be giving the buttons functions and working a lot on the backend.

A meeting has been scheduled with Professor Hollingsworth for next week. Post meeting, the parts should be ordered and then we can begin constructing the first prototype.

To talk a bit about Level 1 of the Kickbox, it was really interesting to think about why this project is important, both to the public and to ourselves. For us, its an awesome learning experience that will hopefully prepare us for graduate school or add an interesting touch to our resumes. For the public, its a device that could ease tensions about pet safety. Needless to say, we are super excited to get this kickstarted!

One frustrating thing we learned after research was that there is actually a similar device that has already been produced called "Whistle". Its a similar idea where you can clip on a GPS tracker to a dog's collar, but differs from our product because there is little functionality besides GPS. Interestingly enough, this product also retails for $80 so it would be fascinating to see how much "Walker" could be sold for per device. We hope for something around $50 but that would probably mean buying a bulk order of bluetooth sensors, which seem to be the most expensive piece so far.

Anyway, thanks for reading and stay tuned for more updates!