Posture Pal

Sit straight, stay great – Posture Pal helps students build better habits one check at a time.

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Inspiration

I'm a high school student, and like many of my peers, I spend hours on my computer every day for schoolwork. I constantly catch myself slouching – hunched over my desk, shoulders rolled forward, neck craned down. I know that bad posture can lead to back pain, neck strain, and long-term health issues, but I still struggle to sit straight.

I realized I probably wasn't the only one facing this problem. Students everywhere spend hours on screens without thinking about their posture. So I decided to build Posture Pal – a health-focused web app that reminds you to sit straight, tracks your habits, and makes good posture feel rewarding.

What it does

Posture Pal is a web-based posture tracking app that reminds you every 20 minutes (or your chosen interval) to check your posture. You can log your posture as "Good," "OK," or "Bad," and the app tracks your daily score and consecutive-day streak. It gamifies good posture with 8 achievements that unlock automatically as you build better habits. The app also includes a history page with a line graph showing your progress across daily, weekly, and monthly views, plus a color-coded weekly calendar. Customizable settings let you adjust interval, daily goal, sound, and dark/light theme. A cute turtle mascot keeps the experience friendly and encouraging.

How we built it

I designed the user interface in Figma, creating all four screens (Dashboard, Popup, History, Settings) with a consistent color palette and clean layout. I then used Figma Make to generate the initial HTML/CSS/JavaScript code. I used DeepSeek AI to help with debugging, planning features, and refining the code – I would review the results, test the app, and then go back to request changes or make edits myself. The app uses localStorage to save user data locally so progress is never lost. The entire project is a single HTML file with embedded CSS and JavaScript, making it easy to run and share.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was my coding skill level. I'm not an expert coder, and building a fully functional app in 48 hours solo was intimidating. I knew I couldn't write all the code from scratch, so I used DeepSeek AI to help write and refine the code. I reviewed every change, tested the app repeatedly, and made adjustments myself where I could. Another challenge was getting the streak system to work correctly – I wanted the streak to count consecutive days, not total logs, which meant I had to track the date of the last log and handle edge cases like logging multiple times in the same day or missing a day.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm proud that I built a fully working app from start to finish, even though I'm not a strong coder. I designed the UI in Figma, generated and refined the code using AI tools, and made sure everything works together. The streak system works correctly, the achievements unlock with popup notifications, and the app saves data in localStorage so progress is never lost. I'm also proud of the dark mode theme and the clean, professional design.

What we learned

I learned how to use GitHub for version control, how to design a UI in Figma, and how to effectively use AI tools like DeepSeek to help me in areas where I'm not as strong – in this case, coding. I also learned how to come up with a useful idea that actually solves a real problem, and how to persevere when things get difficult.

What's next for Posture Pal

I plan to add a mobile app version, AI camera posture detection using computer vision, push notifications for reminders, and the ability to export data as CSV/PDF. I also want to add multi-user support and leaderboards so students can challenge each other and build better habits together.

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