Flutter and Dart Fundamentals

This unit introduces core concepts and tools for mobile app development with Flutter and the Dart language. Students will set up the development environment, learn Dart programming basics, and build simple interactive user interfaces using common widgets, layouts, and basic animation scaffolding to prepare for more advanced app development in subsequent units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze and describe hardware, software, and tools required to establish a Flutter development environment, including IDEs, SDKs, emulators/simulators, and device considerations
• Apply Dart programming fundamentals—including functions, variables, classes/objects, inheritance, string manipulation, and async/await—to create reusable code components for a sample application
• Demonstrate construction of interactive Flutter UIs by implementing widgets and layout patterns (Scaffold, FloatingActionButton, Switch, Rows/Columns, nesting) and basic animation setup to produce a working prototype
• Evaluate and iteratively enhance a small app project (e.g., Doris’s Dating App) through state handling, event-driven behavior, and incremental UI/feature improvements