Inspiration
I used to journal a lot when I was a kid, and I found that it was a really fun way to reduce stress about anything that happened that day. Whenever I messed up on a test, or had a bad day, I would go write it in my journal and then later on when I was feeling better, maybe a week or two later, I could go back to that entry and think to myself 'hey, that wasn't all that bad'. I feel like journaling is a great way to alleviate stress but over time, you start journaling less because you won't always have access to a pencil and a notebook, and your stress load over time starts to get bigger and bigger as you get older. That's why I decided to focus my project on mental health, more specifically mental health in women. I created a website to spread awareness about mental health and also coded an online wellness journal that helps women keep track of their issues or things that may have happened to them in order to control stress.
What it does
The website itself is there to spread awareness with lots of links to different resources, while the journal has a lot of cool built-in features that make it really user-friendly. You can write multiple entries in the same run, and each one will be saved under a separate name of your choice. Additionally, these entries are saved to a Json file, so that they'll still be there even if you entirely exit out of the program or page. You can come back the next day, or whenever you want, and you'll still be able to access all of your old entries. It also prompts the user for a username, so these entries will only be saved under that username, creating some protection for what you write, while also making it so you can create an endless amount of journals under different "usernames", making the program very versatile in general.
How we built it
I used HTML and CSS in Visual Studio Code to create the website, and originally coded the Journal program using Python in PyCharm, but switched it to Replit later on so it would be more easily accessible through my website.
Challenges we ran into
The main challenge I ran into was trying to find a way to implement the journal as a part of the website. At first, I wanted it to be its own page inside the website but ended up using Replit instead and linking it in. The website on its own took me a lot of time because I've never built one before, and I didn't know how to code in HTML or CSS, so I spent a while watching tutorials and reading explanations to be able to create my project.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I'm very proud of how my website turned out because it was the first one I've ever created, and I had a lot of fun building it. I definitely feel more comfortable using HTML and CSS now and am glad that I was able to learn so much in such little time to create this project.
What we learned
I learned a lot of HTML and CSS to be able to make my website more user-friendly. I had to go past the workshops and do a lot of outside research, which I now realize will be really useful later on when I build more websites or work on more projects because I'm able to comfortably write in HTML and CSS.
What's next for Mental Health Awareness Website w/ Wellness Journal
As I continue working on this project, I hope to make it more user-friendly and be able to find a way to implement it directly into the website rather than prompting the user to go to an entirely different site. That way, it doesn't make things confusing for people. I also want to include some sort of password protection on the journal, instead of just having a username option, because it would make it a lot more realistic, and trustworthy for real people to use in the future.
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