Newz4Kidz

Inspiration

Being surrounded in a digital world, which has become even more prominent due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, young students often rely on the Internet to learn about the ongoings of the world around us. Studies show that kids value the news, as it makes them feel aware of their surroundings. It is often encouraged for kids to learn from the news, as it can help them become better citizens and apply their gained knowledge to everyday life. Therefore, we wanted to come up with a way that makes news more accessible for the youth of today, in a way that makes them feel represented and as a target audience in the news.

What it does

With an HTML, CSS, JS, and block-based coded user-interactive graphic interface, our project seeks to inform kids about current events occurring around us. By clicking on a pinpoint on the world map, the page redirects to a map of the place where the current event occurs, which would help kids better visualize the geography of the event’s location: a skill that is useful for school and common knowledge. Furthermore, by clicking the “Breaking News” button, the page will then redirect one to a Scratch coded simulation of news reporters delivering information regarding the event on the screen, in a way that is kid-friendly and captivating in design. Additionally, our web page includes a comment system, in which users can comment on current events.

How we built it

Using repl.it’s integrated development environment, we coded the main webpage using HTML, CSS, and JS. By hyperlinking the points to the Google Maps API and Google Sky API (for the space pinpoint), the user would be able to interact with the map on Google’s platform. Furthermore, the user could then direct to the Scratch news-reporting simulation with a hyperlink, in which they could watch a short display concerning information of the event occurring in the pinpoint they clicked on. Lastly, using our knowledge of coding, we coded the comment channel for users to interact.

Challenges we ran into

We encountered obstacles along the way of completing this project, but finally ended up with a result we are proud of. First of all, we had very limited time to complete this project, causing organizational problems. However, we persevered and completed it on time. Additionally, we wish to have further advanced our project by adding more pinpoints and features after completing more research: a desire unable to be pursued due to time constraints. Overall, we learned lots from this Hackathon and would definitely consider doing something similar again in the future.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have been able to plan the idea, implement it through code, and create a demo in a limited amount of time. We gained the experience of completing a complex project under the pressure of time, and are proud of the outcome and how it can be implemented to help today’s youth learn about their world.

What we learned

By completing this Hackathon, we learned more about coding and using our skills to change the world. We also strengthened our team bonding skills and learned how to collaborate with each other to create a helpful, effective, and complex project that could make a difference in the world for kids everywhere and their access to news.

What's next for Newz4Kidz

To progress Newz4Kidz and take it to the next level, we would like to contact online news services, such as New York Times and CBS, and incorporate their news pages to provide news for more locations, and pages appropriate for a variety of ages (rather than just kids). Additionally, we want to add more pinpoints and represent a larger portion of the map and more current events on our webpage. We would also like to incorporate more geographical capabilities, such as climate and local updates. Lastly, our user-comment-interaction service needs more polishing for design and structure to be improved.

Built With

• api
• css
• html
• javascript
• map
• scratch