Advanced Studio 1 Group 1

Week 8 marked a clear shift in the project. Development had been progressing well with Manzil leading the build and Aman contributing to the verification system for home charger providers. This week the team came together to consolidate that progress and move into the testing phase. Roshan had shared some feedback around perceived participation levels for some team members. While contribution had been ongoing in various forms, we took the feedback seriously and used it as a prompt to formalise our engagement and make it more visible going into the final weeks. Aman had been unwell and missed the class session but showed up to the evening makeup session, which reflected the commitment the team had to staying on track despite the circumstances. That evening the three of us, myself, Manzil and Aman, had an in depth meeting based on Roshan's feedback from class. Manzil walked us through the latest build and the progress made on the home charger marketplace feature. We then worked throu...

 Team Re-engagement and Bug Resolution Week 8 marked an important shift in the project as the full team came back together following a period where development had been progressing primarily on my end. The focus this week moved from individual development to collaborative review, testing and planning. Earlier in the week I continued refining the application, making updates across multiple screens and improving the overall cohesion of the three portal system. Key updates included improvements to the host booking management, admin trust and verification flows, and the addition of new screens including a help page, wishlist and host analytics. I also worked on the Stripe payment integration and Supabase backend functions to support the booking and payment lifecycle. On Thursday evening the team met for an in depth session. I briefed Tausif and Aman on the current state of the build, walking through what had been completed and how the different parts of the system connected. During the...

With the direction confirmed after the Week 6 demonstration, this week was about making sure the development was moving in a way that reflected what we had committed to. I visited Manzil and we went through the current state of the app together, reviewing how the community home charger feature was taking shape. My focus during the session was on the user experience side. Going through the app as a user rather than a developer helped identify areas where the flow did not feel natural or where screens existed without enough purpose behind them. Manzil's development had been progressing well but having a second set of eyes on it helped surface things that are easy to miss when you are deep in the build. One area we spent time on was the charger listing and registration flow. For the marketplace concept to work the process of a provider registering and verifying their charger needs to feel trustworthy and clear. We discussed what that flow should look like from the user's perspecti...

 During Week 8, our focus shifted towards strengthening the reliability and trust of the VehicleGrid application. Building on the refinements from the previous week, we aimed to enhance the system by introducing more realistic and practical functionality that reflects real-world EV charging platforms. A key feature developed this week was the verification process for home EV charging providers . We designed a system where EV providers must register within the application and undergo a verification step before their charging station becomes visible to users. This ensures that only legitimate and trustworthy charging locations are listed, improving both user confidence and overall platform quality. From a system perspective, we worked on defining how provider data is validated and how this status is managed within the application. This included considering how verification affects the visibility of chargers, as well as how the system can handle future scalability such as admin appr...

Week 7 was about stepping back and looking at the app as a whole rather than individual features. The team reviewed the quality of the current screens and interactions, asking whether the app felt like a professional product or just a student prototype. I was involved in these review discussions, contributing feedback on where the interface needed more consistency and where screens existed without enough meaningful purpose behind them. A key area of focus this week was the charger listing and verification flow. For the marketplace concept to work properly, the process of a host registering and verifying their charger needs to feel trustworthy and clear from the user's perspective. The team discussed what information needed to be captured and how the flow should present itself to give drivers confidence in what they were booking. This discussion directly fed into the verification system that would become one of my main contributions in the weeks ahead. By the end of the week the app...

 Week 6 was a significant week for the team. The checkpoint demonstration gave us the opportunity to present not just what we had built but also explain the reasoning behind the direction we had taken. During the demonstration Roshan asked each of us to speak to our progress. I walked through the shift in our approach. Originally VehicleGrid was designed as a broad EV routing platform that pulled together all charger types including government, private, Tesla and community chargers into one unified system. Private and community chargers were always part of that vision but as a data source feeding into the route planner rather than a feature in their own right. Based on Roshan's feedback over the previous weeks and the reality of our timeline and team situation, we restructured the app to bring the community home charger marketplace forward as the primary focus. This is where homeowners and private providers can register, verify and list their chargers for other EV users. The routin...

 During Week 6, we focused more on the practical side of the system and how the application features would function together. At this stage, the project moved beyond only planning and design thinking, and we started reviewing the logic behind each major page and feature more critically. A key task this week was evaluating the purpose of the main screens in the application. We reviewed whether each page had a clear role in the user journey and whether it supported the main purpose of VehicleGrid. This helped us identify areas where some sections looked acceptable visually but still lacked meaningful functionality. We discussed how dashboard-style pages, charger views, and trip-related screens should provide useful information instead of acting as placeholders. We also continued refining the data structure of the application. More attention was given to how chargers, trips, vehicles, and user profile data should connect with each other. This was important because the application ne...

Week 6 was a significant milestone for the team. The prototype checkpoint gave us the opportunity to present what had been built and explain the direction the project had taken. During the demonstration Roshan asked each of us to speak to our progress. The team presented the restructured approach, shifting the focus from a broad EV routing platform to the community home charger marketplace as the primary feature. I contributed to the presentation alongside Tausif and Manzil, speaking to the work done and the reasoning behind the pivot. The feedback from Roshan confirmed we were moving in the right direction. The week also involved reviewing the logic behind the key screens and evaluating whether each part of the app had a clear purpose in the user journey. Some screens looked visually complete but needed stronger functionality behind them. I was involved in reviewing these areas and contributing to discussions about how the app could better serve real user needs rather than just lookin...

Week 5 was focused on refining the design direction and making the app feel more like a real product rather than just a concept. The team spent time this week reviewing how the app would behave for different types of users and how information should be presented clearly so drivers could actually make decisions from it. I contributed to discussions around the charger detail screen, looking at what information needed to be shown including charger name, location, speed, connector type and availability so that the data felt useful rather than just decorative. The trip planning logic was also discussed more deeply this week. How route planning should connect with battery awareness and charging feasibility was something the team worked through together. It was still early in terms of implementation but getting aligned on the logic helped give the project more depth going into the prototype phase. With the Week 6 prototype approaching the team was focused on making sure what we were building ...

This week my focus was on monitoring progress and ensuring we were on track for the Week 6 prototype submission. With Manzil driving the core development, I visited Manzil to review what had been built and cross-referenced it against the requirements breakdown from last week to check we were still aligned with our proposal commitments. During the session we discussed the current state of the application and what needed to be in a demonstrable condition before the checkpoint. With the prototype deadline approaching, the priority was making sure what we had was coherent and purposeful rather than incomplete. These in-person sessions have become a useful part of our workflow, allowing us to work through problems directly and keep development moving in the right direction.

  Week 5 Progress Report In Week 5, the project progressed further into design refinement and functional planning. The focus this week was on making VehicleGrid more practical as a real-world application rather than just a concept prototype. More attention was given to how the app would behave for different types of users and how useful information could be displayed clearly. One of the key activities this week was improving the planned interface and feature layout. The design direction was reviewed to make the application feel more modern, polished, and business-ready. Pages were considered not only from a visual perspective, but also from a usability perspective. The goal was to ensure that important actions such as finding a charger, checking charger details, and planning a trip could be completed without unnecessary complexity. Work was also done on the charging station side of the application. The type of information to be shown for each charger was discussed in more detail...

Week 4 was about moving from early planning into something more structured and concrete. The team shifted focus this week toward refining the core idea of VehicleGrid and making sure the features we were planning to build were actually aligned with what EV drivers would need. The key modules of the system became clearer this week including user authentication, charger browsing, route planning, trip management and preferences. Understanding how these pieces connected helped give the development a stronger direction. On my end I contributed to the interface planning work this week, reviewing the layout and screen flow ideas alongside Manzil and giving feedback on how users would move between the key pages. We looked at the Home screen, Charger Map, Trip Planner and Profile and discussed how to make the navigation feel natural and reduce confusion. Tausif also shared the requirements breakdown he had compiled from the original proposal this week which gave the whole team a clearer referen...

Following the Week 3 checkpoint, my primary focus this week was completing the requirements extraction I had committed to. I worked through the original VehicleGrid proposal systematically, pulling out concrete feature commitments, technical specifications, and functional expectations. This gave the team a clearer reference point for development decisions going forward. I shared this breakdown with the team so that everyone had a shared understanding of what we originally committed to deliver. This directly supported the work Manzil was doing this week, reviewing the app's core modules, user flow, and data structure, ensuring his development direction stayed aligned with our proposal rather than drifting from it. My focus this week was less about writing code and more about ensuring the project had a solid foundation of clarity before we moved deeper into implementation. With the Week 6 prototype approaching, having everyone aligned on requirements now reduces the risk of divergenc...