KotlinSpaceRadar

"A NASA-powered app to monitor asteroids and their Earth proximity, with offline features and clean architecture."

KotlinSpaceRadar is an app designed to help users track asteroids detected by NASA that come near Earth. It uses a free, open-source API provided by the NASA JPL Asteroid team and stores data locally for offline access. This project is part of the Udacity Android Kotlin Developer Nanodegree Program.

Main Features of the Project

• MVVM and Repository Architecture: Implements MVVM and Repository to enhance maintainability, modularity, and scalability, promoting cleaner code and separation of concerns.
• Offline Mode: Provides offline access to data by using Room for local storage, ensuring the app is usable even without an internet connection.
• Paging Library (v3): Optimizes data viewing with seamless scrolling, ensuring smooth navigation through large lists of asteroids.
• Accessible UI: Dynamically generated ContentDescriptions to enhance accessibility, making the app inclusive for all users.
• Orientation Support: Adapts to portrait and landscape orientations without losing data or state, ensuring a smooth user experience.
• Modern UI: Uses single-activity architecture with multiple fragments for simplified navigation and improved modularity.
• Reactive UI: Incorporates DataBindingAdapter and Kotlin Flow for a reactive and responsive user experience.
• Dependency Injection: Koin (v4) improves modularity and testability by effectively managing dependencies.

Showcased Skills

• Clean Architecture: Enforced separation of concerns through domain, data, and presentation layers.
• Offline-first Design: Implemented offline access using Room, ensuring a consistent user experience even without network availability, supported by periodic background data updates using WorkManager to keep the data fresh.
• Scalable Codebase: Followed MVVM and Repository patterns to make the project scalable and maintainable.
• Reactive Programming: Utilized Kotlin Flow to efficiently handle data streams, making the app responsive and resource-efficient.
• Accessibility: Implemented accessibility features, including dynamic content descriptions and support for screen readers, to promote an inclusive experience for all users.

Project Resources

• Starter Project Code: Get the starter code for the project.
• Project Rubric: View the project rubric.
• Android Kotlin Developer Nanodegree Program: Learn more about the full program and its related projects.

Note: Many improvements and features in this project are not included in the Project Rubric as it was initially a project for the Udacity Nanodegree Program.

Installation Guide

This project requires a NASA API Key. Follow these steps to run the app:

1. Clone the Repository: Clone the project repository using Git.
2. Open in Android Studio: Open the project in Android Studio Ladybug (2024.2.1 Patch 2) or later.
3. Generate NASA API Key: Obtain your NASA API Key.
4. Add NASA API Key: Add the NASA API key to the local.properties file: NASA_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" Alternatively, follow the Secrets Gradle Plugin guide.
5. Build the Project: Use Gradle Plugin v8.7.2 to build the project.

Note: Ensure you have the latest version of Android Studio and the Gradle build tool installed. Please look at the official guide if needed.

Main Included External Libraries

• Koin (v4): Dependency injection framework, allowing modularity and making the project easier to test.
• Timber: Logging utility to simplify debugging.
• Picasso: Image loading and caching for efficient display of images.
• Retrofit: REST API management for fetching data from NASA's servers.
• Moshi: JSON parsing for managing API responses.
• Secrets Gradle Plugin: Secure management of sensitive data like API keys.
• KSP: Annotation processing plugin for improved build performance.

Snapshots from the App

Phone Screens (Portrait)

Asteroid List Screen Displays a paging list of asteroids with essential information.	Asteroids Filter Scren Customizable filter to auto-fetch specific data using Repository.
Asteroid Detail - Non-Hazardous Screen Dynamic previews details of a non-hazardous asteroid.	Asteroid Detail - Hazardous Screen Dynamic previews details of a hazardous asteroid.

Phone Screens (Landscape)

Asteroid List Screen in Landscape Mode
Optimized for a seamless landscape viewing experience.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or submit a pull request for improvements or bug fixes. Please feel free to reach out if you'd like to add new features or expand on existing ones.

How to Contribute

• Fork the Repository: Click the "Fork" button at the top.
• Create a Feature Branch: Branch off from main for any features (git checkout -b feature/your-feature).
• Submit a Pull Request: Submit a PR describing your changes.

Contact

Feel free to reach out for any collaboration opportunities or if you have any questions. I'd love to hear your thoughts and contributions! Check my GitHub profile.

License

This project is open-source and licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. The LICENSE file in this repository provides more details.