
Grand Canyon College software program growth main and music producer Alex Vergara couldn’t discover a music-streaming service that hit the proper word, so he created BeatsTree.
Like with Spotify or BeatStars, customers can add their songs, however in contrast to different music-streaming providers — and what makes BeatsTree so completely different — is that customers can also obtain these music information, that are saved within the cloud.
“I’m a producer and make my very own beats. … I needed to place my title on the market,” Vergara mentioned of the seed of inspiration behind BeatsTree. It’s a venture he began engaged on over the summer time, even earlier than his capstone class began in September.
“I’m not utilizing any API’s (utility programming interfaces, which permit packages to speak with one another). There’s nothing prebuilt. Every little thing’s constructed from scratch … all of it’s constructed by hand by me,” he mentioned.
The educational curve was large for him in engaged on this venture, he mentioned. Not solely did he refine his expertise in programming language C#, however he dove headfirst into cloud computing program Microsoft Azure over the previous few months.
“It was HUNDREDS of pages of documentation I needed to filter via,” he mentioned of looking out via Azure to search out what he wanted to construct BeatsTree.

Vergara’s music-streaming service was considered one of roughly 60 initiatives on show Thursday in Antelope Gymnasium as a part of the end-of-semester Expertise Capstone Showcase, organized in partnership with Strategic Employer Initiatives and Internships. It’s when seniors current their capstones, which are supposed to showcase all they’ve discovered of their tutorial profession at GCU.
The occasion, that includes the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Expertise’s software program growth, pc science, info know-how and Analysis and Design Program college students, welcomed business professionals and advisory board members who obtained to see firsthand the tech savvy of the College’s college students.
We was in a hallway, then expanded right into a classroom, and now it is gotten so large that we moved it into the health club. It is a good drawback to have.
Expertise Mission Supervisor Katherine Urrutia on the expansion of the Expertise Capstone Showcase
The showcase has grown exponentially because it made its debut in 2016.
“We was in a hallway, then expanded right into a classroom, and now it’s gotten so large that we moved it into the health club. It’s a superb drawback to have,” mentioned Katherine Urrutia, Expertise Mission Supervisor.
Guests may view every thing from VR Arcade (builders: James Ridley and Dylan Olthoff), which re-creates the throwback ’80s arcade expertise via digital actuality; to HikingTracker (developer: Connor Rolstad), which features a where-you’ve-hiked map and provides hikers a technique to monitor information, equivalent to elevation achieve; to the Assortment Tracker (developer: Nate Kelley), which supplies Pokémon fans a technique to monitor their card assortment.
Guests additionally may scan in a QR code at every venture website to offer their suggestions.

Whereas the capstone displays often characteristic seniors, software program growth freshman Joseph Abraham was invited to take part as considered one of a number of representatives of the College’s Analysis and Design Program. Abraham is a part of the Computational Synthetic Intelligence/Machine Studying & Robotics Lab, working beneath the mentorship of Dr. Jevon Jackson.
Abraham’s venture, Faux Information Detector for Twitter, makes use of machine studying to ferret out false info. Abraham is wanting via information about Elon Musk of SpaceX, Tesla and now, Twitter, fame to show this system what statements are objectively true or false. He goals to undergo 20,000 items of information whereas this system is in its “studying part.”
“Three months in the past, I didn’t know learn how to code,” Abraham mentioned of his venture, which he’ll proceed to develop as he strikes via his years at GCU. “I’m loving it.”
Pc science college students Katelyn Hochstetler and Evan Kliewer, who labored with Orbis Training, developed a digital actuality simulation utilizing Microsoft HoloLens know-how. It permits nursing college students to observe their evaluation of newborns and carry out different duties, equivalent to holding a digital child. The simulation is supposed to be an middleman instructing device, sharpening nursing college students’ expertise between the classroom and the time they begin to work together with actual newborns.
“It simply offers them extra expertise,” Kliewer mentioned.

Data know-how college students Luke Levene, Brooks Birkinbine, Jerry Connelly and Victor Perez shared the small print of their diet internet app, Trustworthy Vitamin.
What makes it completely different from different diet apps, Levene mentioned, is “it exhibits you a broader vary of your information.” So as a substitute of exhibiting customers per week’s value of what they’ve eaten, it goes again additional to trace their diet habits. The app can also advocate meals based mostly in your consuming historical past. It is aware of in case you’re missing the beneficial dairy for the day, for instance. Customers can also set private targets on the app, which tells you in case you’ve gone over or beneath your private calorie purpose.
Pupil builders Melanie Spence and Elijah Olmos developed a software program that makes use of Web3.0 blockchain applied sciences to maintain monitor of attendance. Blockchain data transactions organized in blocks in a peer-to-peer community. The software program could be one thing professors may use in school to maintain monitor of attendance or that organizations round campus may use in order that they know who attended their occasion.
Olmos, who demonstrated the know-how by scanning a card onto a raspberry pi pc, mentioned, “What I discovered essentially the most about was blockchain,” a more moderen know-how he and Spence needed so as to add to their tutorial arsenal.

Software program growth senior Charles Osiris developed MediHealth, a cellphone app that reminds customers to take their medication. He obtained the thought for the venture as a result of his mother is on medicine and tends to overlook taking a capsule or two.
“My largest problem was to launch it on the cell phone. I needed to replace the API,” which then precipitated issues that he scrambled to repair, Osiris mentioned.
Leini Santos, product designer for Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona, was considered one of about 50 business professionals and advisory board members who attended the occasion.
“We’re probably hiring for a brand new developer in January,” she mentioned.
She’s hoping they’ll discover a scholar developer from GCU who will hit that good word.
“Considering of all of the constructing blocks we’ve completed, that is the fruition,” mentioned Assistant Dean of Expertise Brandy Harris, who regarded out into Antelope Gymnasium and noticed the ocean of tables and college students dressed of their presentation greatest. “We’ve simply had large help from our business companions, who’ve come again and helped us refine (what we do) much more.
“It’s been fantastic.”
GCU senior author Lana Sweeten-Shults could be reached at [email protected] or at 602-639-7901.
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