Cortex: Memory Card Game

Ay! It runs! :D

Inspiration

One member had a grandfather who had Alzheimer’s, and was inspired by the need to help him and others like his grandfather.

What it does

The app's purpose is to improve one's memory and may especially benefit those suffering from memory loss diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

How we built it

Blood. Sweat. Code.

Challenges we ran into

One coding difficulty we faced in the programming of our app was incrementing the level of difficulty or the number of rows/columns in the game. Also, generating a random pattern was difficult because we had to program a way to control how many squares were selected and ensure that no square was accidentally chosen twice. Another coding difficulty we encountered was trying to figure out how to add a timer for both the timer on the GUI and the timer in the background.
To address these technical challenges, we first drew a diagram for how the game should work on paper, so it was easier to visualize. In other cases, if we were still confused on how to approach our problems, we went online to see if others had had similar issues/solutions. We looked at online documentation to help us code properly, such as the official JavaFX tutorial, the Java API docs and Stack Overflow, which contained helpful coding tips and examples.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of winning the Congressional App Challenge in our district (NY3). The first iteration of Cortex housed a pattern game in which users recreated patterns displayed on the screen. The game got harder as the user clicked the right patterns. We're excited to present our brainchild sometime in the near future at the Congressional App Challenge's Congress Winners' Conference (that is if our government is still open).

What we learned

We incorporated our Java skills which we learned last year in AP Computer Science, along with learning JavaFX and FXML to create a user-friendly and stylistic game.

What's next for Cortex: Memory Card Game

We would like to improve our app by adding different types of games that also work towards increasing the player’s retention of patterns and words. We already have many ideas for more games, such as a word memory game and a number memory game, in which the player has to retain memory of many words or numbers simultaneously.