Lili Romann ’19 and Daniel Harizman ’19
As the 2016-17 school year comes to an end and this year’s class of seniors venture off into their future endeavours, Dylan Diamond ’17 and Dylan Gleicher ’17 pass on the operations of their scheduling application, iStaples, to rising seniors Neal Soni ’18 and Jack Sharkey ’18.
“I hope I have made a positive impact on the Staples community through my various apps and helped people get through their already stressful day more easily,” Diamond said. “I’ve been very pleased by the response and adoption throughout the school during my time here.”
The iStaples iPhone application is comprised of three different sections. The first in which students can track the schedule of any given school day, another where they can view their full schedule, and finally, a section where users can track the full schedules of their classmates. After Diamond left the Staples community, he placed trust in updating and modifying the application in the hands of Soni and Sharkey.
Throughout the process of building and perfecting the application, Diamond was heavily assisted by Gleicher. Gleicher felt that their launch of the app was successful; they could fill all of the gaps in the Staples technology world.
“Dylan was in my AP computer science class last year, and he pretty much is known as the ‘app guy,’ so I thought it would be cool to make an app with him,” Gleicher said. “Peter Sauer, who maintained the previous Staples app, was graduating, so we thought there was gonna be a need for another app. This gave us the opportunity to incorporate everything we thought was missing.”
As the application provides students with a structured outlook on any given day of the school year, many students, such as Will Rosenthal ’19, completely rely on this application to guide them throughout the week.
“If I didn’t have this app, I would never know what class to go to,” Rosenthal said. “Thank you to whoever made this app. You are like a God to me. Without you, I would be lost all of the time.”
Sharkey and Soni are incredibly honored to uphold this responsibility of managing the app and have developed many plans for the upcoming year. Some of these alterations include accommodations to students as they transition into the new daily schedule effective next school year.
“Dylan is a great programmer and put together a great app for this year, and I’m honored that he asked myself and Neal to keep it going for next school year,” Sharkey said. “I look forward to making the app better for next year and making the transition to the new schedule smoother.”
Soni had the opportunity to help Diamond launch his Tesla app one year ago and feels ready to take on this new position and further improve the application for user benefit.
“The [Gleicher and Diamond] code is very complex and a lot of new stuff to learn,” Soni said. “Everyone should bare with us while we try to implement the changes. We will try to make it as painless as possible.”
The soon to be seniors are looking for suggestions from Staples students as for how to better the app and make it more versatile. Additionally, they look to develop their skills and grow as individuals through this experience.
“This will help me grow as a programmer because I’m going to have to interpret the previous code then write new code to update it and incorporate the new schedule,” Sharkey said. “As an individual, I’m excited to add it to my personal portfolio as well as establish myself as a strong programmer within the Staples community.”
Science teacher David Scrofani has taught Soni, Sharkey, Gleicher and Diamond programming in extensive detail throughout the years and has nothing but support for them as they use their skills to take on new challenges. .
“We talk so much these days in education about students learning things themselves and about teachers not being the arbiters of knowledge but rather the ones who help to guide students toward certain endeavors that they tackle themselves,” Scrofani said. “ I have no concerns whatsoever. Things couldn’t be in better hands.”
