I haven't built a website from scratch before, and I wanted to create something that I could actually use to help myself in every day life. My hack, on the surface, involved me understanding how to integrate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript using timers, buttons, and other commands. However, I learned a lot about the process of setting up a website and hosting it on GitHub. I was able to obtain a domain and get my website set up on Gitpages, but I could not quite figure out how to bridge the gap between the two. That's something I look forward to solving in the future.
On my website, you can read the instructions and click the start button. This launches a timer that counts down 15 minutes. During this time, you should try to be productive and do work. At the end, you'll receive a notification that asks you to determine if you were productive or not. If you were, press yes, and you are rewarded with a picture of a happy cat. If not, you get a disappointed cat, which is a feeling no one likes. You can restart the process by pressing the start button. All pictures disappear and the slate is clean. I think this will help me have a bit more motivation to be productive during the 15 minute interval.
In the future, I think it would be interesting to go further by randomizing the happy and sad images so you get a new image every time. Currently, the website depends on your own honesty to reward or chastise you. However, it could be more helpful for people with limited impulse control to somehow track sites you've been on and determine if you deserve a happy or disappointed cat picture based on what you did. I'd also like to make the animals shown and the lengths of time customizable so different people can decide how they want to spend their time.
This was my first hackathon and first web project, and I am proud that I was able to produce a good foundation for future projects, and am excited to actually use it to be productive myself!
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