Dopamine Machine

Given 6 daily tasks, check them off as you complete them
Our app in production
Once you complete them, you are given an image and quote, so you can feel good!

Inspiration

The advent of coronavirus was heavily unexpected; nevertheless, it is responsible for the current plight that the world is in now. Dealing with issues such as deaths of relatives and friends, stock market losses, and uncertainty of upcoming elections, the productivity of millions of people has taken a huge hit. Mental health issues are rampant all over the world during this period due to a lack of physical interactions. Balance is key in life, and it is important to take care of one’s health in a holistic way: mentally, physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. We decided to empower people by providing them an aesthetic, psychologically-based tool to feel productive daily and happy from accomplishing things.

What it does

Currently, our application provides 6 common daily tasks for users to complete. These include tasks that are not recorded every day. Our goal is to empower people to accomplish their daily goals, especially in stressful and uncertain times Users are also able to add or remove additional tasks to hold all their goals in a central location. Finally, once the user completes the 6 common goals provided, they will receive congratulations, an image, and a motivational quote!

How we built it

Our minimalistic to-do list was made using Flutter. We started by implementing a basic tree diagram model to guide us on building. Subsequently, we watched multiple tutorials and referred extensively to the Flutter documentation during the development process. Additionally, we utilized Dart Pad to test and debug various fragments of our code and referred to multiple Medium posts to perfect the app features.

Challenges we ran into

Normally, in an in-person hackathon, we are able to change code on each other’s laptop quickly. We did not let that problem stop us. We learned about the Take Control feature in Zoom while screen-sharing, which enabled one team member to edit code on another team member’s laptop. We also utilized screen-sharing on Zoom to be able to show off to the entire team what someone was working on and the current state of our project. Considering none of us had any experience using the Flutter framework prior to this weekend, time was definitely not in our favor, but we accomplished as much as possible given these constraints. We utilized the lightbulb feature in VSCode while coding to help us overcome bugs. Overall, we are proud of our team for collaborating effectively, materializing this app, and overcoming obstacles of inexperience with Flutter and online communication.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the many things that we accomplished this weekend. It was the first hackathon for two of our team members. Being able to produce a product and submit it is something we are proud of. Additionally, other goals of a hackathon include networking, resume building, and learning. We were able to do that by connecting with people in workshops and through Discord and Hopin. Learning a brand new framework was our largest accomplishment this weekend, and we hope to continue to build on that.

What we learned

Technology is changing at a rapid pace, and we must keep up with this. As amateur hackers, we aspire to expand our knowledge in new tools and technologies that we are least familiar with. We could have easily coded a more intricate project in Java, but we wanted to challenge ourselves and learn a new language this weekend. So, that is exactly what we did with Flutter! We downloaded the software using instructions from the Hacker Guide and Google. We also attended the Shell Hacks Flutter Workshop. Ultimately, we have become more comfortable with using Flutter to develop unique apps and plan to create more advanced applications in the future.

What's next for Dopamine Machine

The product we have submitted is only a gist of the fully-functioning app that we have envisioned. This is because of the time constraint of the hackathon model, but in the future, we plan on making multiple additions. The goal is to turn this simple version into a centralized health and well-being companion. This will include an addition of tactile switches that move and make sound, as well as well designed indicator icons that illuminate when tasks are accomplished to add a larger feeling of accomplishment. To further enhance this feeling, we will also add a sense of sound to the completion of tasks. In addition, we want to leverage machine learning capabilities to suggest more personalized daily tasks. We would also like to suggest tasks for social good such as recycling or cleaning up trash to help educate and create a global impact. We would link these tasks to organized events in an area using various APIs such as Google Maps API. Although our project this year is in its infancy, it has tremendous potential, and we hope to expand on it in the near future.