Q:

Keeping busy/Increasing Coding Chops on slow work days

So I've been doing a lot of app development, and code maintenance at work.   I'm an android developer, though I do some other stuff around the office occasionally.   The last few weeks we've had a shortage of tickets for me to work on, and the ones I've gotten I've pounded out and been bored for several hours after. 
I'm looking for some good activities, guides, projects etc.. that I can work on during these down times to keep my android skills sharp.   I've been reading up on optimization, security, design and implementation strategies and some other fun stuff. 
I'm looking for short projects - 1-3 hours long, which will teach me something meaningful about the platform, reveal some hidden aspect I didn't understand, or otherwise just be really cool so I can be like - "yea boss, I'm a baller".    Beyond that - really well implemented code would be cool too, I like looking at other peoples stuff and as I'm doing a lot of maintenance programming the ability to quickly aclimate with code is something I'm trying to work on. 
Thanks guys,

A:

How about using your 'down time' answering questions on StackOverflow.  I find it a delightful diversion after a gruelling day in the "Android Swamp Mines (tm)" ;-)
Seriously though, there are a lot of questions that are better answered if you create a small test program to test the user's problem and your answer.  The community also gets better quality answers. 

A:

I think it can be done like this:
1) You are amazed by some application or some part of some application similar to how one gets amazed by seeing some beautiful thing
2) Being a programmer you, however, have an advantage of analyzing your amazement in terms of programming and are able then to formulate for yourself a quest something like 'how can I achieve such an amazing OK Button (or perhaps Cancel Button)
3) You then start working on achieving that same Ok (or perhaps Cancel) button in your small test project
4) You then stuck

