Head Space

Inspiration

A common thought drifting around the minds of high school students around the world is “ am i good enough”, “ do i look good”, “will my parents accept me.” We always brushed these thoughts off, but we never realized the impact of these issues upon those closest to us. During our schools “Speak up for Change” assembly, we learnt the stories of our friends and their struggle with mental health. Later that night, we found out about the hackathons theme, and we were given the perfect opportunity to create a project that could aid thousands struggling with mental health issues of their own. Our solution to mental health issues is Head Space, an app that creates a safe haven for its users, where they can post pictures of themselves to a close knit group of friends. Head Space was created to help people focus on their own mental health, and help those that are struggling to win the battle taking place in their mind.

What it does

Head Space creates a private space for those who are struggling with mental health issues. Everyday at 12:00 a.m Head Space sends the same message to each of its users, spanning from “ What is one act of kindness you performed today” to “ How did you spend time on your own well being today?” Users respond with a picture of themselves, illustrating their response to the prompt, as well as a caption explaining the image in context of the prompt. This picture is only available to a group of friends that users choose themselves, allowing for an entirely positive comment section. Receiving compliments and positive messages has been scientifically proven to significantly boost overall mental health, and according to Sterling Wellness, “ Receiving a compliment can have a powerful effect on your self-esteem while giving compliments to others has been proven to have a positive effect on one’s own mental health.” We designed the daily questions to be centered around helping others or spending time helping yourself, both of which have been proven to have an immensely positive effect on your mental health if turned into a routine.

How we built it

We started by creating a flutter app. Then we linked the app to firebase because it has easy to use authentication services for managing users. For designing the app we used canva to plan out the colors and layout and then we just built it for flutters. For storing images for the app we used Firebase Storage and for storing data about the posts we used Cloud Firestore.

Challenges we ran into

When thinking of how to create our app we followed a simple design process. We had brainstormed several ideas and after decide on Head Space we looked at what problems we would face. From that point we solved most of our issues which was having to download all the components to make Firebase work. Another problem we had was not understanding how we would would make certain features such as commenting work, but after more research we found our solution pretty quickly. Due to the fact that we followed a simple design process we did not have many problems, and when we did we worked together to find a viable solution.

Accomplishments that we're proud of (In person)

During this hackathon all three of us learned several skills from coding to how to efficiently work as a team. Coding wise we developed and continued to advance our skills in Firebase, and deploying apps. These skills allowed us to create a full fledged prototype for how we wanted our app to look and function. Another accomplishment for us was being able to split up all the aspects of this hackathon and not procrastinate, which led to us being able to produce a appealing and cohesive final product that all three of us are proud of.

What we learned (In person)

At the start of the project some of the team members did not have the most experience with coding. Ishaan and Samvrith were kind enough on the first day to teach Akash basic coding knowledge around app creation. Ishaan had explained what to download and how the apps and coding languages worked. Akash had learned the in and outs of Git, Flutter, and Firebase and was able to help create Head Space. Ishaan further developed his skills in Firebase. Lastly, Samvrith learned how to create app layouts, effectively demo an app, and learned skills regarding design planning.

What's next for Project (In person)

In the short span of two days the three of us developed several ideas and additions that could be implemented into Head Space. In the future we would want to add a “ Personal Space”, GTP based Positivity chat bot, negative comment filter, a smoother UI, and also implement more effect network features. The “ Personal Space” feature would be created after users post their daily Head Space picture and caption. The feature would start a chat between the user and GTP based Positivity chat bot, that would further ask question to the user, about what was really happening. The goal for this feature is to find out what exactly is happening in the users mind each day. After implementing the “ Personal Space” feature we would implement a smoother UI and better networking features. Lastly, we would add a negative comment to ensure that no negative comments would be posted. These are all features that would help propel the app from a positive social media app to the next level, an all-in-one app that combines the user’s social media/virtual interactions, while simultaneously building their mental health and making almost all of their virtual interactions positive, a drastic change from today’s social media apps, filled with toxic interactions, where your information is visible to millions of anonymous users worldwide.