Peace Pets

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  Opening Screen

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  Design

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  In motion!!

Inspiration

Hello, my name is Isabella D. (She/Her)! I myself have struggled with clinically diagnosed OCD, anxiety, and depression in my life. These are tips that have helped me personally, when online tips and traditional meditation apps (which require you to pay a subscription fee for ACTUAL help) did not do much for me at all.

What it does

My hack, which I’ve decided to call “Peace Pets,” is my take on a mental health app. Peace Pets is an app that helps with the calming down of flare ups and attacks of different mental illnesses. It is important to note that this is NOT a substitute for emergency treatment or therapy. I have used techniques which have helped me personally with my history of mental illness to try and help others. In this app, you choose what disorder is flaring up (for the purpose of the demo I did not include ALL disorders I had intended to include, but these are examples) and an animal will appear on your screen saying something along the lines of “Hi, my name is __, and I have _. What I like to do when I feel bad is ______!” By personifying the animals, the user can feel more comfortable addressing the problem themselves. In the demo, you will see a specific example in action. Along with this, there is a resources page in the settings menu that provides free resources divided by group (BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and general resources). This ensures that there are multiple opportunities for the user to get help, even if the animal does not help them in that instance.

How I built it

By utilizing Figma, I was able to prototype my app for a mobile device. I was able to prototype my plan and create an animated demo in time for this hackathon’s submission deadline. Though I plan on programming it in the future, I did not use code for this. Instead, I used a wireframe for a mobile app (credits to the user Martina for sharing this super helpful mobile wireframe with the community link)

Challenges I ran into

Figma had a little bit of a learning curve, so I took a couple hours to figure everything out, watch fragments of different YouTube videos, and looked to the community page for inspiration.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I am proud of picking up Figma as a new skill, creating an app demo in less than a day, and participating in this hackathon in the first place. I am so thankful for this opportunity to expand the market of women/non-binary folx in STEM! :)

What I learned

I learned a whole new skill, Figma, as well as a whole new respect for UX/UI developers (not that I didn't respect them a whole lot before). This small taste of web design has been an experience, I had only previously done backend work. I also learned that you do not need perfection for demos, you just need a presentable demo that properly represents your ideas.

What's next for Peace Pets

I plan to apply information from primary care physicians, endocrinologists, therapists, and psychiatrists for ways to improve the app. I fully intend to code this app using Python or C++ for hopeful release to the public. Even though the demo does not include hand-drawn icons, (I used copyright-free clipart) I would like to digitally design the animals using my digital art experience. Hopefully you will all be there for the new Peace Pets when that day comes.

Built With

• figma