Dad Stash

a dad joke on a browser
a dad joke on a mobile

Inspiration

According to Alison Ledgerwood, a social psychologist at UC-Davis, once a negative thought enters our mind, it gets stuck there. Once we think about something as a loss, that way of thinking about it seems to stick in our heads. Our view of the world has a fundamental tendency to tilt to the negative. We have to work to see the up side. To counter this problem I've created a simple web application that shows a new corny dad joke just on the click of a button. In this way people can take a break from what's going on in their head and go back to work with a fresh perspective.

What it does

A new dad joke is displayed on the screen every time the user clicks the Get another joke button. They can view new jokes and relax themselves from the issue at hand. After they feel better the can directly go back to work with a calm and relaxed mind.

How we built it

I used Figma to build the UI of the website. Following this I made the frontend of the website using HTML, and CSS. It fetches a random dad-joke from icanhazdadjoke.com's API using the Axios library. The Get another joke button sends a GET request to the API server and fetches another joke. Finally, I deployed the website on Vercel.

Challenges we ran into

It was my first time making a web development project in a such a short period of time. Working with APIs & exploring a whole new library was a demanding & challenging task, especially against the constraints of time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

To be able to complete the project & make a fully-functional website to help others is something I feel proud of. On the plus side, I can use this website when I"m feeling down too.

What we learned

Mainly I learnt how to manage my time and prioritise features for this application. I learnt how to use new APIs and libraries by reading the documentation.

What's next for Dad Stash

Build an App: I hope to build this software into an app for individuals to access through their mobile phones as well.

Additional features: I hope to add a section where people can talk to each other securely for a short period of time and get over their negative feelings.