Hocus Focus

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  Home Page

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  Individual Subject Page

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  Questions Page

Inspiration

As COVID-19 led to a surge of virtual classrooms in Zoom and Google Meet, many students, including us, found it much more difficult to focus during class. We wanted to create a program that would help students focus without distracting them from the ongoing lesson.

What it does

Our app provides three separate methods to help you focus during class. Firstly, an interval timer reminds you to stretch every few minutes. Next, you can add questions to a question list before or during a lecture. When the professor answers a question, you can check it off and write the answer below. The timestamp for the answer will be provided, so after class, you can go to their published recording and find the direct quote. Finally, if there's a live transcript, the app can read the transcript and have a related image pop up every half a minute to keep users on topic. You can also customize and record questions for individual classes, since different classes create different attention spans.

How we built it

Due to time constraints and limited programming knowledge, we were unable to code this project. Instead, we decided to create a project proposal outlining how it would function if we actually created it.

Challenges we ran into

We didn't have any previous experience with natural language processing or front-end programming. In addition, we were in entirely opposite time zones, making teamwork very difficult when one's bedtimes coincided with the other's breakfast. And we found it difficult to decide which focus method was the best, so we eventually included all three ideas.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to create an innovative product idea and a mock interface in half the time provided, as well as come up with a solution to our limited programming skills.

What we learned

We learned that the best interface is a simple, user-friendly one, that thorough planning is the most important part of any project, and that 24 hours can pass by very quickly.

What's next for Hocus Focus

After Pearl Hacks, we plan to learn the programming skills needed to create Hocus Focus, properly code this project, test it out, and possibly publish it.

Built With

• genial.ly