NameStormer

Creating the next best game? Are you a story teller? Do you like creating characters? Do you struggle with creating names? NameStormer will randomly generate the perfect name for any occasion!

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Inspiration

When creating creating characters for various projects, naming them is often the hardest part. No character is complete without a good name. Online generators can often be helpful in finding the perfect name, however the names generated from them don't always feel right. Sometimes you see the same names begin to repeat over and over again, and other times you just don't really like the names themselves that are generated. NameStormer was designed with the user in mind. The idea behind it was that half the names a user gets out of the generator is tailored to their preferences in a name, and the other half is completely random to allow for the app to continuously learn what the user wants.

What it does

When opening NameStormer for the first time, the user can choose to create and account and login, or simply play without signing in. When advancing to the home page the user can pick between four different generators. Female names, male names, gender neutral names, and random names. After selecting the generator they want, the user then gets to pick how many names they want generated, and if they have a preferred letter for the names to start with. After clicking the generate button, the app will then randomly select and display appropriate names.

How I built it

This project was programmed entirely in Android Studio. The back end was programmed entirely in Java, and the front end was programmed in XML.

Challenges we ran into

My main challenges from this project stemmed from all the new knowledge I was gaining while working on the project. I have never programmed a app like this one before. While I have experience in Java, I have never used Android Studio before. I have experience in HTML and CSS, but this was my first time coding in XML. I had to teach myself a lot on the go with this project. I have also never worked with Firebase before. This was a major struggle for me. I had to learn not only how to connect it to my project, but also how to implement and use it. While I heavily struggled in Firebase's database system, I learned the authentication system for this project. I taught myself how to set up a fully functioning "login-logout" system for this project.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Not only is this my first time working with Android Studio and Firebase, it is also my first hackathon. While the app doesn't quite do everything I initially intended it to do, I am proud that I was able to adapt and create a fully functioning app nonetheless.

What I learned

Aside from the technical skills I gained while working with new systems, the process of creating a app from start to finish was an amazing experience. I learned how to be patient with myself when facing challenges, and to not give up. While I didn't manage to learn how to implement Firebase's database into this project, I now have an area that I know I can grow and learn more in.

What's next for NameStormer

Aside from adding more names to the generator, the next step is for signed in users to be able to "favorite" names. These favorited names will be used by the machine learning system to get a feel for the kind of names the user likes. Then, when the user goes to generate another batch of names, half of the names will be names the artificial intelligence thinks the user would like.

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