Maverick Mingles

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Inspiration

Our school is brand-new, with kids coming from all of Wake County. Because of this, a lot of students did not know anyone. Everyone was coming from different schools, and most people didn't know a single person. So, while we were trying to come up with an idea, we thought about how many people eat lunch alone, and how often we see people being left out in class. We knew we wanted to bring students together. And what better way to do that then through games?

What it does

Our app lets students join a random game, and tells them what room and day it is available. The rooms are still to be determined, because the administration has to improve it first.

How we built it

We used code.org to build our app. All of our members are novice coders, so we used the block coding functions. The app just identifies what button you pressed, and randomly assigns you to a game. We hope to have more games in the future, divide students up into teams, and use notifications so students can register ahead of lunch.

Challenges we ran into

We struggled to understand code.org, especially in the beginning. But after a lot of YouTube videos, we were able to build our app. A lot of our members also had club meetings, so finding times to meet was difficult. But we were able to work around our schedules to meet.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud of getting nearly 1/3 of our school to answer our survey. We asked students what games they enjoyed and what days they were available, and used that to program the app. We're also proud that it works properly, even if it's not exactly what we hoped for. But we are hoping to improve our app in the future.

What we learned

First off, we learned how to use code.org. Through a lot of YouTube videos and trial-and-error, we were able to learn it. We also improved our soft skills, and became a lot better at working in a team.

What's next for Maverick Mingles

Even though our app is up and running, it’s not perfect. In the future, we want our app to include a badge system, to motivate students to use it more often. Also, we plan on working with administration to organize bigger, school-wide games. When students filled out a survey for games they were interested in, many of them added that a school-wide game would be fun. We also want to make it easier for students to attend school games and clubs, as most people don’t even know when and where they are. Notifications could play a big part in reminding students to show up to events they’re interested in. So, there is still a lot more we can do to make our app even better!