Inspiration
When the Hackathon began, I wasn't quite sure what to do it over. All I knew is I wanted to dive into something I had no knowledge of before and learn as much as possible. Not long before the weekend, me and my partner's cat started acting ill, so we made a vet appointment. It was then that my partner suggested an app for pet owners to help them track the wellness of their pet.
What it does
The idea was that the app would give pet owners daily reminders in the weeks leading into a vet appointment to check their eating, drinking, and activity habits in order to help keep track of this info for the vet. The primary features would be to create a profile for each pet with name and picture, and then check which categories you would like to record data on (eating, drinking, etc.) and then at the end of each day, the app would send a notification reminder to record on a scale of: 1 - Much less than normal 2 - Somewhat less than normal 3 - normal 4 - Somewhat more than normal 5 - Much more than normal how their pet is doing each activity. This would continue daily until the appointment.
How I built it
This was my first experience in android studio. I spent a lot of time familiarizing myself with the tools and delving into new territory. Ultimately, I was only able to create two screens with a button linking them and a second button that crashes the app, as can be seen in the demo.
Challenges I ran into
Ultimately, even with small scope, it was ambitious to try and do a completely new type of project on my own. Between other things that cut into my time, and the amount of time I spent learning the software and frameworks, I wasn't able to accomplish much in terms of actual code.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I'm proud that I tried and that I participated in my first hackathon, and I learned a lot!
What I learned
I learned a lot about android studio (and there's a lot more to learn!) In particular, I did a lot of experimenting with the UI design capabilities, as well as figuring out the way android uses 'activities' to organize app structures and functionality.
What's next for PawPad
I would really like to take the time, now that I am more familiar with the tools, to try and complete my intended functionality well. Eventually, there are even more features that could be added, such as custom trackers and communication with vet's offices.
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