PawPals

Send postcards to other students based on prompts!
Get a crash course in empathy!
Collect animal characters!
Home page - Learn about empathy and community in your home base.
Profile page - See your animal friends and progress.
Activities page - Send a postcard, see badges, and participate in challenges.
Map - See participating schools, fun facts, and a scrapbook of postcards.
Admin view - Teachers can add new discussion prompts or view past ones.
Admin view - Teachers can access past prompts.
Admin view - Teachers can message other schools and see school standings.
Admin view - Teachers can moderate what kids are sending each other and see a class list.

Inspiration

When tasked with a project for the theme "Reimagining community", we began brainstorming topics regarding penpals, teaching children, and connecting pet owners. We decided to look more into the teaching children aspect of an artifact, understanding that they play such an important part in the future of our community. Their minds are open to learning and imagination, and that is exactly what we wanted our artifact to tackle. We were inspired by connection and trying to build a skill that may be lost in a generation of screens: empathy. Through the incorporation of postcards and challenges, PawPals reimagines the empathy learning process and encourages our future leaders to be kind.

What it does

PawPals is an educational website that partners with schools around the country to let students navigate their empathy journey. By sending other students they do not know postcards, they are building this skill. PawPals contains four main pages: home, profile, activities, and map. There is also a toggle to an admin view; this allows teachers to see what their students are doing and keep in touch with other schools. On the home page, students are greeted into the website and encouraged to learn more about empathy. This prompts a kid-friendly crash course into the world of empathy, breaking down what it is and where they may have seen it before. This course is led by Edward the Elephant, a symbol of one of the most empathetic animals. Students may also engage in a challenge prompt, view their animals, or send a postcard. The profile page lets students view their accomplishments and incentives. As students send postcards and participate in challenges, they can unlock new animal characters. Here, they can see all of their animal friends and their progress on their mission. The activities page explains how students can send postcards, and allows them to fill it out. They can find challenges and badges as well. The map page demonstrates their impact. The pins on the map show participating schools, and where their postcards have been sent. Lives are different all over the country; it is important that students learn this in their empathy journey. Fun facts about participating schools are added and updated, and students can find postcards from this week's prompt in their scrapbook at the bottom of the page. This is ideal for learning from others and gaining inspiration of generous things to do in their personal lives and communities.

How we built it

We created our website using Figma and Procreate. First, we made a list of our design features and pages. We then established our branding and overall aesthetic, allowing our design process to follow through in an organizational fashion. We created our wireframes and prototype efficiently once these were decided, making sure we used all of the 24 hours.

Challenges we ran into

While the time constraint of 24 hours was a challenge, we found our ideation to be challenging as well. Using the theme "Reimagining community", we wanted to make sure we lean into both aspects enough for a unique idea and idea that is feasible within the time allotted.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud of the site as a whole. We became passionate about the idea quite quickly. Our use of animals and the creation of a personal zoo as incentivization for being kind is something that we enjoyed creating and watching come to life.