Niles North Students Build App for School News

Looking for up-to-the-minute news about Niles North High School? There’s an app for that—the northstarnews app, created by three students in a video game programming class at the Niles Township High School District 219 school. 

Created by An Nguyen, Michio Tsukamoto and Farhan Noormohammed, the app features breaking news, features, sports, editorials, and other information available on the northstarnews.org website, in a portable, readable format. There’s even a puzzle game, “Fill the Vikings.” The app is available for free in the Apple App Store or Android Market.  

“We started working on the project in November and finished in late February,” Noormohammed said. “The hardest part was getting it to be as fast as it is.” 

The students created the app as their service project for the year during David Ruth’s video game programming class. 

“We decided that we were going to layer it like the website since they have their own categories,” Nguyen said. “We basically have the app grab the stories in each category.” 

The programmers used html and php for gathering the stories and making it look graphically appealing. They also used java script and html 5. 

Another obstacle in designing the app was “the limited amount of time we have in class, 42 minutes,” Nguyen said. 

All three students have taken the Video Game Programming class with Ruth for the last three years. 

“It was a good experience, in general, because it gave you a sense, if you wanted to be a programmer, how you’d work with different languages. Sometimes it takes longer than expected and it can be frustrating at times, but in the end it’s a big accomplishment,” Nguyen said. 

The students also had to work with North Star News when programming the app and so far the feedback has been very positive. 

“Ever since we went online, we have been thinking about making an app; the advent of this app is just an example of the continuing progress of North Star,” said Ivan Silverberg, a North Star News advisor. “It literally puts North Star at your fingertips.”