FIU Study Pal

Connecting students and helping build relationships - one study session at a time.

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Inspiration:

All our team members had one thing in common: we wanted to build human centric solutions towards problems and take our communities one step closer to being integrated in a "Smart" manner. From building better transport systems to working on helping elementary students with EdTech, we realized that a lot of students feel disconnected from their peers and are not always comfortable approaching others, especially in situations that are not normally deemed "social" - case in point: someone studying alone on a bench table.

By connecting such students together by removing a glass barrier of a traditionally "not social" scenario, we are able to help bring students together with their peers, work together, foster relationships and ultimately reach success together. This not only results in a more efficient and friendly utilization of space, but creates an inclusive community environment for the area it serves.

What it does

Study Pal is a website through which students with the same major can find each other studying on campus, and meet.

Study spaces have a QR code physically present which students who sit down to study can scan, enter their department and major, and are now visible to other students potentially looking for them.

Students looking for others to potentially study with enter their department and major, and if there are students who have signed into study spots, they will see an image of the campus map with pointer(s) telling them where the students (the ones at the study space, working) are. The pointers are hyperlinked to the Google maps pin of the study space, which they can walk to and meet their peer.

Both students will enter their student IDs to be registered on the database for future use.

Once the students are done, they can enter their ID again and the system will recognize that they have left the space.

How we built it

We created a way where the user would scan a QR code on their phone and they would be navigated to a website built in HTML CSS. They would be asked questions like their school of study at FIU and results would get narrowed down to their major. After that the data inputs are sent to the database with PHP and stored in MySQL, where we have created a counter system to provide availability for study areas and locations. The user would be sent to a map location where they would be pinpointed to their location using coordinates from Google maps, in the end the user finds their perfect study area in minutes

We tried to create a powerful system that utilized HTML,CSS and JavaScript to create all the visual beauty that would be displayed in a user friendly manner. Our strength comes through the backend, where we used PHP and MySQL to scan availability of study areas and accurate search results.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges we ran into was trying to create that connection between the website and the database. Since there is so much complexity in building a database and user friendly website, it is much more difficult to have them speak to each other.

We also had challenges of providing the most comfortable experience to the user as possible. UX design is a whole world of its own and needs every detail to be paid attention to.

3 teammates joined and left during the process of this, which did add to the difficulty, change in expectations and workload we dealt with.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud of the concept that was first designed: trying to get a person to a study area in the most accurate, safest and easiest way possible. I think that if FIU believes in our idea with improving studying mechanisms at FIU, we can create something way bigger that will ultimately change the perspective of studying at FIU forever.

What we learned

We learned that managing our time during a 36 hour event was the most important thing in succeeding during this hackathon. We came across great ideas that with time would create revolutionary changes to FIU, however, to make the most simple form of a proposal towards a BIGGER idea, we stood small and focused on a small goal which was trying to improve studying experience safely and effectively at FIU

What's next for FIU Study Pal

Study Pal at the moment is an MVP (minimum viable product) and has its short and long term goals for progress.

Short term: A/B test, location API embedding, add more locations, improve design according to prototype

Long term: Pitch to FIU, if testing and assumptions are validated, expand base to other universities across the nation.

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