Inspiration
We wanted to develop something meaning so we decided to steer our focus into mental health issues. Although we know that this won't be the direct treatment of mental health issues, but we hoped to make the days of people who are suffering from mental health problems and hopefully find joy and a peace of mind from using our app.
What it does
Basically, you enter the app and it asks you a question, such as asking how you're feeling today. You have about 3-4 options which are descriptive of your mood such as happy, calm, anxious, or hype. Based on your selection, we show you content such as music, video, or memes that we think would be appropriate for that and hopefully make the user's day a little bit better by doing so.
How we built it
We used android studio and coded the app based on Java. Nothing complex was done method-wise. We kept the whole thing simple as we're inexperienced developers and the given the time constraints. We designed the main interface using GridLayout and Link multiple screen, as well as adding a video player just to demonstrate it.
Challenges we ran into
Getting started was the biggest challenge because we had nearly 0 knowledge about android app developing when we started the hackathon and we had not discussed our ideas prior to the event either. We had to learn how to develop an app, how to use Android Studio, and decide on what kind of app that we will be proud of developing over less than two days, while maintaining extracurricular activities and studying for upcoming tests. I had a hectic weekend due my bizzare schedule, that I basically running back and forth between buildings to attend numerous meetings and events. My partner was not in her best condition due to her illness.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
The fact that we actually learned even a tiny bit of android app development over one night and created something from scratch that does something meaningful.
What we learned
We learned that app development is at least 70% creativity and 30% skills because we believe we had a great idea for this hackathon, but we could not really simulate that in real life due to our lack of skills. We also learned to work as a developing team which was quite new, but rewarding at the same time.
What's next for Mental health entertainer
We have still yet add the features such as displaying fresh memes and perhaps adding a playlist of songs. We have decided to add a sidebar/setting that contains information about useful helplines regarding mental health, but could not complete it due to time constraints.