By Rachel Dinh
Most people can’t say they’ve programmed an app in their lifetime. Senior Jacob Steineke, state-qualifying cross country runner, avid robotics team member, and widely-known Apple fan, has programmed two: SpeedScout16 and One Shield.
Jacob attributes his knowledge of programming to the 2014 robotics preseason. During robotics competitions, scouting teams keep track of how well other teams’ robots’ autonomous works and what tasks they can perform well. This is all in hopes of securing a solid alliance with a team with a reliable robot. Jacob created SpeedScout16 to compile other robots’ capabilities into one place for a more efficient mode of scouting.
As for One Shield, Jacob was inspired by one of Marvel’s most famous superheroes, Captain America. He says, “I had been thinking about the idea for a long time and had always wanted to create a fast-paced action game that still had some sort of puzzle or thinking aspect to it. Before One Shield, I made One Laser, which was a great learning experience that made programming One Shield much faster. The shield-throwing part of the game was mostly inspired by the Captain America movies, in which he is throwing his shield off of walls to destroy multiple enemies.”
Jacob is proof that with the drive to succeed, any goal is possible. Most of the programming he learned was self-taught using YouTube videos, Stack Overflow, and Apple’s documentation. He already has big plans for his game and plans to launch version 2.0 this December with several smaller updates.
Hard work never comes without a learning experience. Jacob says, “Making One Shield was a really challenging but fun experience. Many of my classmates and brothers beta tested the game and their feedback was an essential part of the process, so in some aspects it was really a team effort. From making the app I have learned how to schedule the completion of a very large project over a long period of time. As with all programming, all of the planning and bug-fixing was an intense patience building process.”
Jacob already has a big fan base from TPA seniors, who have supported his efforts and some of who made him an “awesome” One Shield-themed cake.
If you’re interested, you can still download this free app on the iOS App Store. Jacob says, “I encourage anyone who enjoys mobile games to try it out. Thank you if you already have downloaded it and a big thank you to all of the beta testers.” With all of these advances so early in his educational career, we look forward to seeing what Jacob does in the future!