HealthUp

HealthUp- An app to give kids enough time outdoors, so that they get enough sunlight to prevent growth/ on-set of myopia or Vitamin D deficiency

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Inspiration

Excessive sun exposure during school hours can increase the risk of UV-related health issues such as sunburn and heat stress. At the same time, insufficient outdoor activity has been identified as a key contributor to the global rise in childhood myopia. This creates a challenge for schools: how to encourage outdoor activity for better eye and overall health, while minimizing risks from harmful UV exposure. Our inspiration was to design a data-driven scheduling tool that enables schools to achieve this balance.

What it does

NoGlassesClasses – The SunSmart Scheduler generates optimized class timetables for primary school grades. It:

  • Uses local sunrise and sunset data to determine safe outdoor activity slots.
  • Ensures at least two outdoor classes per day while avoiding peak UV hours.
  • Fairly distributes indoor classes across the remaining periods.
  • Provides easy-to-share CSV exports for teachers and parents.

How we built it

  • Implemented in Python 3.9+.
  • Leveraged Astral for sunrise, sunset, and daylight calculations.
  • Used pytz for timezone support.
  • Integrated requests and timezonefinderL for coordinate and timezone lookup.
  • Designed console-based inputs and outputs with CSV export for schedules.

Challenges we ran into

  • Designing schedules that worked fairly across multiple grades and sections.
  • Preventing long consecutive outdoor sessions during high-risk hours.
  • Managing timezone and daylight calculation differences across regions.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Successfully built a functional scheduler that incorporates real astronomical data.
  • Balanced student safety with the need for outdoor time to support vision health.
  • Created a lightweight, easy-to-use solution with practical outputs.

What we learned

  • Gained hands-on experience with astronomical and timezone libraries.
  • Explored the connection between childhood myopia prevention and outdoor activity.
  • Understood the importance of usability and adaptability when building for schools.

What's next for HealthUp

  • Integration of real-time UV index APIs for higher accuracy.
  • Development of a mobile/web dashboard for school administrators.
  • Application of machine learning to refine schedules based on weather and attendance.
  • Long-term tracking of myopia trends to measure health impact.

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