Readlet

The Logo

Inspiration

The initial idea came after reading a book about motivation, which argued that traditional motivational techniques - punishment or direct monetary rewards - are counterproductive. We explored how this insight could be applied to a valuable skill that is in decline - reading.

What it does

The solution is two-part. The first part is an app for children. Where they set up a time interval they would like to spend reading. After successfully completing the task, they are rewarded with points. If the app is turned off during this interval, the reward may be jeopardised. Children can spend the points in the app to buy books for people in need: libraries, charities, foster homes, etc. Thus their effort makes the world a better place - this, we hope, is a better motivation than avoiding punishment or buying a candy. Kids can rate the book they are reading so that our system recommends their parents what other books to acquire. Interesting and matching books can further increase child's participation.

Another part is a dashboard for parents. Parents can register readers to the app. They can also add balance to kids' accounts, manage the charities they would like to donate to and view children's progress.

How we built it

The Web dashboard currently uses Azure Blob Storage to retrieve record data. The same store is used by the app to upload data.

Challenges we ran into

We were not able to develop the app UI, due to problems with emulators. The website currently displays mockup data, that would be uploaded by the app.

In hindsight, we would also use Azure SQL Store rather than blob for a more convenient data storage.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We learned how to use Microsoft Azure, Node.js and connect them together. We have never worked with .NET mobile before, so we are glad that we managed to set up the scaffold and necessary services for the app, though more development awaits!

We also created visualisations and a dashboard website to convey our idea.

What's next for Readlet

Next steps are to develop the app and test interactions between the two parts of our system. The other important step is to add book recommendation system to fund this project.

We hope the motivational aspect of this idea, could be tested and verified with real users.

In the future, the possibilities lie with increasing the activity scope, widening who can participate.