Focus

Start up page of our app
Sign up/Log in selection page
Student sign up page
Log in page
Home page of the app
Concentration timer page
Daily tasks page
Tips and tricks page
Breathing page, follow on from the tips page
Countdown timer page, follow on from tips page and linking to the timer
Scheduling information page, follow on from the tips page
Games page, can be accessed from home screen or the tips page
Useful links page, to hopefully help others understand ADHD a bit better

Inspiration

Breaking boundaries immediately sparked us to think about the unfortunate but unavoidable boundaries which are in place between those will learning difficulties and those without. Hence, we decided we wanted to create a project which would help someone who is less fortunate than us. This led us to immediately think of an app to help overcome one of the boundaries created, which has been enhanced this year by COVID, and try to help those with ADHD focus a little better.

What it does

Our app largely provides ideas for ways in which those with ADHD can help to focus their minds on the task at hand, with to do lists, focus games and other tips and tricks to maximise each period of focus. It is a service which can be used by older, more independent students, or it also allows for younger students to access it with a parent. Our initial aim was to also build in a timer, as upon doing research we found that timers are often used to help children with ADHD gain more awareness of time as it passes and to help them see how much longer they are required to concentrate for. We would have also liked to have built our own versions of some of the focus games into the app, however this was slightly too ambitious given the time we had available.

How we built it

We decided to use Swift to build an iOS app and Firebase Realtime Database to hold all of our user data. Swift is object oriented which means that our code is a collection of classes all built up separately and linked together to provide one cohesive app.

Challenges we ran into

Due to time and our prior familiarity with Swift, we realised that when we originally set out to code our app, we were a little too ambitious with all of the features and sub programs which we wanted to include. For example, the timer function didn't work out over the past 24 hours, however we hope that we can implement this after DurHack has finished. Additionally, we wanted to include our own focus games and also link student profiles to teacher profiles so that teachers could overlook their students progress, however again, this was slightly too ambitious for us currently.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're really happy with the state our app is currently in. For the level we started at, we think we produced something beyond what we expected we could, despite our ambitious plans. The app looks cohesive and well put together, which we like and we think we took into account the accessibility of the app, with engaging colours and a friendly user interface, to a good level, so that our target audience wouldn't struggle to interact.

What we learned

We learnt a lot during this hackathon. One of us started with no experience of Swift whatsoever and both of us learnt new ways to solve problems, in a new environment. We made a lot of commits to the github repository which we set up and this has furthered our knowledge also. We also got to learn a lot more about people with ADHD and similar learning difficulties, and we hope it will help us to understand better in our future. It's hard to sum up quite how much we learnt but we really think we massively benefitted from this hack.

What's next for Focus

Next, we would like to implement the timer which we set out to have as one of our main focuses and also set up a teacher side of the app so that they can view their own students' achievements and progression. We would also love to add in our own focus games, rather than rely on ones which are already on the web.