Inspiration
Humans for millennia have lived in small communities, tribes and villages of less than a few hundred people. Only relatively recently in human history have we become technologically advanced and started living in bigger communities. But living closer together has not improved communities. We have paradoxically become more isolated as our living arrangements have become more compact. Everyone faces problems in their lives that could others nearby could easily help with but it is more often than not impractical and too awkward to ask for help.
How many times have you desperately needed a stapler? Or ran out of milk? Or needed help getting luggage up flights of stairs? There needs to be a way for people to harness the power of their immediate community to help solve these small problems.
People need to feel needed! Apparently, the elderly are 3x more likely to die if they don’t feel needed.
What it does
favorMe allows people to give and ask for small favors. Users can download the app and create an account from which point onwards they can access the favor marketplace. The radius of the favor marketplace in miles/km can be adjusted in the settings screen. They can make a request by typing it in a search function. After making a request a feed is updated and everyone with the app in the favor marketplace radius is notified of the new request. Other users can then choose to accept the request, if they do so they are then given a time limit to fulfil the favor. If the time limit runs out, the favor request is returned to the feed for another user to fulfil.
(Rewards system: Users are given favorPoints when they first sign up. Afterwards, users must do favors for others in return for more favorPoints which they can redeem for favors themselves.)
How I built it
We built favorMe app using MIT App Inventor 2, a language that uses a graphical interface that lets users drag-and-drop visual objects to build an application for Android.
Challenges I ran into
While Patrick Blinkhorn had experience with App Inventor in the past, he needed to review the language for several hours before he was comfortable using it again. In addition, he helped address several challenges his teammates encountered with App Inventor.
None of us have android phones, so we needed to use the Android Emulator to test our app. It takes approximately 2-3 minutes to load the Android Emulator, so we spent a significant amount of time waiting for to test our app on the Emulator.
On Saturday night, we encountered a major scaling issue with the layout of the app on the Android Emulator. It took us several hours to a) deduce the source of the bug, and b) to restructure and reformat the parameters so that all of the components fit on the screen.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
Worked in a group setting to brainstorm a potentially revolutionary app that could connect individuals to exchange favors and regain the human connection that we are losing--ironically--as we live in more compact spaces.
Identified a platform, MIT’s App Inventor, to produce the app considering the strengths and weakness of the group.
Discussed the possible weaknesses in our proposed idea beforehand in order to produce an app with the best possible features.
Learned to navigate through the platform’s functions and comprehend its full capacity.
App Aesthetics--logo design, sizes of icon, font, etc
What I learned
Learned to use a new platform to make an Android app.
The necessity for attention to detail!
Experiment until you get it right! 1) Identify the problem you want to solve, 2) Observe what variables you can control to change results, 3) Try changing a small sample, 4) Continue to experiment until you recognize patterns, 5) Solve problem
Hacking as a group can be difficult unless you have a clear and organized action plan.
That there are platforms made to make coding easy. The idea behind App Inventor is to help people who do not know programming make an app! Coding is likely to become more and more friendly to the common person.
What's next for favorMe
Figure out effective strategies to attract users, i.e. rewards points when first register, invite friends, daily rewards for check-in.
Test in communities in various scales to further clarify users’ demands and collect feedback of user experience
Upgrade various functions and make them more sophisticated, e.g: the rewards system, an interesting update would be to scale the amount of favor points received for each favor with the time taken to fulfil the request. The favor feed could be a dynamic animated screen where items and services move around and can be tapped on to expand and to view more details before accepting
Create polls/surveys to gauge user satisfaction and next steps for improving the app.
Add a platform that will allow the app on a iOS device.
Add a GPS feature that gives directions for individuals who are not familiar with the location to give or receive favor. Clean up the interface with the help of a UX designer.
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