Greta Thunbär

Animals for the Future

To improve Migros’ customers' quality of life we created an application that not only helps make more sustainable choices when grocery shopping but also makes it enjoyable. Switzerland is lucky to have a grand variety of animals and the swiss citizens are known to enjoy going on hikes and visit zoos. When seeing nature and wild animals we are reminded of the importance sustainability plays to keep those creatures and vegetations alive. For this reason in our app “ Animals for the Future” we chose to create virtual animals that help Migros’ customers on their journey of greater sustainability. With an already impressive variety of 35 animals, each with their individual movement pattern we produced a lot of helpers.

What it does

One starts with one animal, which will inform the user about the monthly sustainability theme. Each week quests are distributed, which when achieved will reward you with mystery boxes. The randomized rewards that follow ensure that the users are engaged and that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is more evenly balanced. Fulfilling quests and reaching weekly/monthly goals can unlock further animals and bestow Cumulus privileges. ”Animals for the Future” is a playful approach to help Migros reach Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as reducing global warming and minimizing waste. The in-game animals help customers be educated and motivated by sustainability and identify themselves with the cause whilst keeping them entertained with rewards and interactions with the application. By continuous use of our application, the sustainable progress they have undergone will become visible in-game through unlocking new rewards and animals, which in turn will reinforce their sustainable habits even more.

How we built it

We developed an Android App which can scan bar codes, make queries to a firestore database and is on top of that a fully functioning game. In the firestore database are all given datapoints so one can create new quests and is not limited to prior quests.

Challenges we ran into

I would not recommend programming a an Android App if you do this the first time. We had it several times that there was a conflict between modules that only occurred with certain releases. This can only be determined with difficulty and is tedious to solve. Another nerveracking thing was to import a list of JSON files into the firestore database.