Refreshing Reminders

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  Sample "Refreshing Reminders" Notifications

Inspiration

In today's society, we humans are regularly busy, especially during the pandemic. It is difficult to relax given the immense responsibilities, and keep track of all the small activities that have a great impact on your personal lifestyle and health. According to Forbes, 95% of texts will be read within 3 minutes of being sent. As a result, we created "Refreshing Reminders" that sends SMS text messages to ensure you are reminded about the small tasks in life that you may forget with your busy schedule. From reminders to drink water throughout the day to taking your vitamins at specific times of the day, Refreshing Reminders ensures you remain on schedule to benefit your health and lifestyle.

What it does

It is not only about quenching your thirst when it comes to hydration, or merely taking vitamins for the sake of it. Drinking adequate water and vitamins has a variety of key health benefits, ranging from temperature regulation to fewer headaches. Unfortunately, it is easy to forget to do these small tasks, and it may not always be straightforward every day combined with busy schedules. Refreshing Reminders ensures you get the required eight glasses a day incrementally throughout the day while keeping you on schedule. We also provide reminders for taking vitamins and attending scheduled appointments, keeping you on track and ensuring you never miss an appointment again.

"Refreshing Reminders" aims for you to target your health and lifestyle goals. Schedule your reminders and we will ensure you receive SMS messages that remind you to drink water, take your vitamins throughout the day or attend appointments.

How we built it

We used Twilio’s SMS communication API and integrated it within our Python code to provide a personalized messaging reminder application. In addition, we incorporated many different aspects of python commands such as: threading, sleep, and Twilio-specific commands (message, body, from, to).

Challenges we ran into

When using a timer for automation, we had to understand threading to ensure 2 tasks can run simultaneously. It was difficult to create a loop that did not interfere with the timing of each individual task. Furthermore, we had to ensure the naming and formatting of all files were correct and coordinated. We also had issues with a typo causing variables to be unlinked. We noticed a huge learning curve when it came to understanding 2 different frameworks (Twilio and python). Both of us have never coded something on this scale, so we had to troubleshoot a lot!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Being beginner coders, we created a functional service that is beneficial to everyone. We set the framework for an amazing UI to be constructed and built off this project.

What we learned

• How to format python
• Twilio’s API that provides seamless implantation of communication over traditional means (SMS, calling, Whatsapp, etc.)

What's next for Refreshing Reminders

Refreshing Reminders would like to aim for increased personalization for each user. In the future, we would like to personalize water intake by asking users to answer questions about their age, weight, height etc. This will allow Refreshing Reminders to ensure you get the right water intake for your own needs, in addition to reminding you to drink water throughout the day.

Also, we plan to create an interactive UI to further the customization preferences of a client. This UI will also allow for more personalized tasks, specific to the person, to be included

Built With

• python
• twilio