Keep Going!!

Inspiration

As two high school students ourselves, we drew inspiration from what we have encountered at school environments. We have noticed that many first generation low income students feel unmotivated to attend school on a daily basis, and this drops their rate of graduation and decreases chances of creating a successful career. We would like to propose an app that encourages these students to consistently attend school by taking care of a personal character they create. This character can be accessorized through coin purchases as the user attends more classes and earns more coins. By investing time into their character, students will feel more motivated to invest time into their education for the sake of their little character. We were inspired to create a character design app because many high school students our age enjoy investing time in caring for a virtual character that feels personal/close to them.

What it does

This app allows the user to create a character and help accessorize it through coin purchases. Students will input a list of their classes and mark whether they were present or not. The number of coins increases given the number of classes a student attends, and coins are lost when a class is missed. Using the points earned, they can customize and accessorize their adorable character!

How we built it

We started the project through a sketch of what each slide of the app should look like, including basic character customization options such as hair, color, eye color, etc. We then divided up the required slides and worked on it separately. There were many small details and notes for improvement which we kept track of to include as "future notes". We used the code.org AppLab platform for the UI and programmed in JavaScript.

Challenges we ran into

As JavaScript is not the language we typically use, adjusting to it was a bit difficult. Additionally, the AppLab platform is difficult to create characters on, so the images came out rough and unlike what we had envisioned. With a better app platform, the app can be much better.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are extremely proud that we were able to adjust so quickly to JavaScript and adapt to the AppLab's slightly restrictive options for creativity. We are also very proud we were able to create something that may grow into a helpful tool for encouraging ALL students to consistently attend class, a tiring yet important and necessary task!

What we learned

We learned more about first generation low income families while we were researching statistics. While we were researching our target audience of FGLI students, we came across statistics that showed many FGLI students had lower graduation rates because they didn't consider school to be important or worthy of their time. Our goal is to combat these common misconceptions by encouraging students to regularly attend class and understand the importance of having a solid academic background.

What's next for Keep Going!!

We want to create more base characters and expand upon our current customizable characteristics and accessories. We also want to create a method for teachers or parents to authenticate the student's attendance, like a password or signature. Lastly, we would like to allow students to save their characters and points so that they can continuously accumulate points and add onto their character.

Built With

• applab
• code.org
• javascript