Mobile · In progress · 2026
Yellowstone field guide app
An offline Android field guide, built from a 40-page microbiology guidebook, that tells you what's alive in the water you're standing over.
- Android
- Java
- Offline-first
- Automated testing
What they had
Yellowstone’s Extremophiles is a 40-page guidebook from BYU’s Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, written as the companion to a two-day class field trip. On the trip, the instructors mentioned they wanted it as an app.
How I got involved
They didn’t know I was a software engineer. I suggested what an app could do in the field, sent a small demo, and was hired after we met.
What I’m building
An offline reader that names what is alive in the water you are standing over:
- Offline-first, because there is no signal to fall back on.
- Gentle on the battery, which on a field day is shared with the camera.
- A one-tap “Where am I?” instead of constant GPS tracking: on a boardwalk you need your position once, then you walk.
- Narration and photos for each stop, since sun, gloves, and wind make reading hard but listening easy. A second language comes in version 2.
How it’s tested
An automated rig photographs all 41 screens and checks the app against the book: 1,243 content assertions, plus 334 checks that the app still follows its design brief.