StudyInUni

an empty classroom before the first student gets seated

Inspiration

People lost motivation to study while staying alone. As Universities go virtual, most students have been staying home alone and their mental health conditions fluctuate due to physical distancing and reduced face to face communication. With StudyInUni, we are boosting people's motivation and productivity.

What is StudyInUni?

StudyInUni is an app helping you get motivated and stay focused on your study in a virtual university setting.

Usage

Using StudyInUni is as simple as attending a virtual university. You can enter a building or a library and choose a classroom to study. There are general rooms and specific course classrooms. You can sit in a classroom to stay focused and be counted for the study time as well as seeing other students sitting in the classroom to gain motivation. You can move to other classrooms when you feel to change your environment/study subject :D.

How it was built

Django for the backend, MySQL as database, Bootstrap and GreenSock for the frontend, Azure VM as the cloud server.

We scraped units of study and its associated time from USYD UOS site for name and countdown of the classrooms and stored them in MySQL database with a Django backend. A queue is invoked to ensure all students will have a place to study.

Bootstrap is used in the frontend for easy and faster development of User interface elements. GreenSock framework is leveraged to animate the web, make the interface vivid, and allow for a smoother user experience.

Challenges we ran into

Choosing an idea that could be implemented within 24 hours from many brilliant ones
User interface and graphics design
Implementing the random seated algorithm
Debugging :)
Minimize time spent on merging our codes

What we learned and are proud of

Our Tech Lead is capable of identifying the exact technical challenges quickly, embracing those challenges, breaking down and assigning tasks to each of us tailoring our specialties.
We managed to decide our technology stack of choice rapidly.
We collaborated incredibly well on exchanging ideas and helping each other to resolve technical difficulties.
We worked together intensively for 24+ hours!

Roles

Da Xie: Tech Lead, Full-stack Engineer, Database manager, Graphics designer, Pitch designer

Yue Pan: Back-end engineer, Database setup, Pitch designer

Yuanyuan Sheng: Project manager, Back-end engineer, Cloud server manager, Pitch speaker

What's next for StudyInUni

Develop a mobile app.

Features to be implemented.

- Visualization of buildings and enhance graphics design
- Enter self-study rooms with keys
- View others' public profile and send a sticky note.
- Reports on total focus time (sense of accomplishments)
- Compare their classroom study time with other students
- Blocking modes to help control phone usage within a set timeframe
- More on the way!

Expand to other universities by having a dropdown list for students to select, and eventually release to the general public with public study areas and libraries.

Monetization: