Inspiration
We were inspired by comfort dogs, who have been shown to drastically improve the mental situations and quality of life of those in need. We wanted to emulate that feeling without applying all the pressure or complexity involved with owning a dog. Additionally, similiar to dogs, we wanted to create an app where the user felt connected with their environment.
What it does
Betterfly uses a pet companion (caterpillar) in order to encourage routines through daily tasks. The user can evolve and collect butterflies, and the app provides positive affirmations, mental health resources, and a mindfulness survey. The initial investment of involving the pet strengthens the connection and keeps the user completing tasks, providing motivation and satisfaction in doing things good for them.
How we built it
We used HTML and CSS in order to create a frontend that was visually appealing and functional. We imported sprites and animations in order to use for the pet companion. Backend was done with majority javascript and research was done in order to have an effective non-overwhelming design.
Challenges we ran into
A lot of initial issues popped up after our prototype, and the majority of our time was spent fixing little persistent issues to refine functionality. As it is our first hackathon, we also ran into trouble with the terminal
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of the butterfly collection system that has each butterfly's data stored locally, as well as the animation between evolutions. Adding many little features that cumulate to enhance user experience was also something that was exceedingly difficult.
What we learned
We learned how to integrate multiple languages more effectively. Since a lot of our time went into troubleshooting we had to look over code extensively, helping our understanding of the backend. Mainly we learned how to coordinate with each other, being able to manage a project with many people under pressure.
What's next for BetterFly
We hope that Betterfly can go beyond mental health and into fitness being able to adapt to more kinds of productivity like sleep, academics, work routines. Ideally we can adapt it for mobile phones to maximize ease of access.
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