A group of tech-savvy students known as Harker Dev has programmed free applications to assist the student population despite not being recognized as a club.

“The purpose of Harker Dev is to build useful projects to make school tasks easier for students,” Manan Shah (10), a member of the group, said. “Primarily web-focused, our approach emphasizes writing tools that students use daily as well as develop web applications to enhance productivity.”

Active Harker Dev members include Manan Shah (10), Andrew Tierno (10), Vedaad Shakib (10), Alex Lyon (11), and Grace Guan (11). In addition, Brian Chan (‘14) helped pioneer the group when he was at the Upper School. The group is currently not recognized as a club or formal organization and rarely meets in person.

“There’s no need [to meet],” Alex said, who added iOS support for the bell schedule app using the online code-sharing site Github. “You can just collaborate online.”

Noteworthy projects taken up by Harker Dev include an accessible online bell schedule, an application to change assignment colors in PCR, and a PCR-viewing extension for Google Chrome. The online bell schedule has an interface resembling the physical bell schedule card. The web tool shows class period timings for each day of the week and also includes alternate schedules. It even allows students to view the non-final schedules for future weeks.

“The first project was started and primarily developed by graduated senior Brian Chan (‘14), who realized that having to switch between reading emails for schedule changes and checking the regular PDF was tiresome,” Manan said. “The second project was written by the current team to fix the less than pleasing aesthetic nature of PCR’s coloring system to ensure that individuals prioritize and focus on the most important work.”

Many students are enthusiastic about these two new applications.

“The color coding on PCR has been so helpful in allowing me to prioritize assignments by clearly emphasizing what type of work teachers are assigning,” Zabin Bashar (12) said. “With the bell schedule on my phone, […] I can easily access information without having to find a spot with wifi, get out my laptop, open PCR, and locate the schedule.”

Manan added that Harker Dev plans to be recognized as a club next year, and will continue to supply the school with applications. Currently, they are working on two main projects. The first would allow students to use the more familiar HHMS system to check their homework in lieu of PCR.

Computer science chair Dr. Eric Nelson believes that students will benefit immensely from the projects Harker Dev has undertaken, especially the PCR additions.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Nelson said. “You got folks that are in the trenches…and have the ability to do something and then innovate, apply, get feedback, modify, and end up with something that you can actually use. Plus it gives the students experience […] in real-life development.”

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on October 17, 2014.