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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2015
Friends are buoyed by support Public won’t stay silent on hospital BY
SANDOR GYARMATI
sgyarmati@delta-optimist.com
It took 15-year-old Rhys Smith less than a month to create an app that helps students keep track of their class schedule.
PHOTO BY
GORD GOBLE
Timetable in your hand Rhys Smith develops app to help fellow Delta Secondary students stay on track BY
DAVE WILLIS
dwillis@delta-optimist.com
Rhys Smith has created an app to help his fellow cellphone-toting students at Ladner’s Delta Secondary. The Android app helps students keep track of their daily class schedule. It stores what class they have each block and
the order of blocks for each school day. Smith, who’s in Grade 10, said he found his friends, and even himself sometimes, would forget what class is on what block. It took him a little under a month to finish the app. “Sometimes learning the programming was hard, but once I had it figured out, it was hon-
estly easy sailing from there,” he said. Smith, who likes to program, used Java and Android Studio to build his app. It also has a timetable for classes in a normal day and then in a collaboration day, where the timetable is altered, and a list of non-regular days. The 15-year-old said he’s hop-
ing to let the whole school know about the app. Smith’s website, Rhyzerapps. com, has a link to the Google Play Store where the app can be downloaded. He’s working on a game, where players drive down a road and have to avoid hitting cars while collecting money, for his next app.
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Delta has been hoodwinked for too long, but it will no longer be fooled. Pleased with the large turnout at last Saturday’s Friends of Delta Hospital forum, Doug Massey, the group’s co-founder, had that to say as he has no doubt the community will lobby hard and loud for the hospital’s surgical program. The former civic councillor and local activist was one of several speakers at the Ladner Community Centre forum, which included presentations from three doctors who work at the hospital. The message to the more than 250 people in attendance was that Delta Hospital has been woefully underfunded when it comes to its acute care services compared to other hospitals in the region. Massey said it’s time once again for residents, who may have grown complacent in accepting all the good news stories about Delta Hospital in the past few years, to join forces and be vocal advocates for the surgical program. “The people have been fooled into thinking we got our hospital back but they were hoodwinked because we really didn’t. They tricked us. Even I thought things were going well with all the money that was being provided by the community.” Massey said he was happy to see so many people show up at the meeting and sign up to join
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