StudyCo

Connecting students together promoting good working habits through virtual avatars
StudyCo homepage where users can find available study sessions using set filters based on location, subject or textbook/school material
Fostering productivity and accountability and recording down students' goals for the timed study session
Unlocking achievements based o productivity to make studying more fun
Customizable backgrounds and settings to adapt to your personal preferences

Inspiration

With video chats and online classes being in demand due to COVID, many young students feel drained out from grinding assignments at home alone and are faced with loneliness and isolation. Finding school friends and matching each other’s schedules to study together is especially hard. We wanted to create an open community so that students across multiple areas can connect together, be productive, and have fun while holding each other accountable.

We also understand that students feel drained and anxious showing their faces on camera and were inspired to build a comfortable working environment using virtual avatars to reduce the stress of presenting themselves nicely.

What it does

StudyCo tracks the movements of the user and converts their movements into their avatar to resemble a real experience working alongside others while maintaining a comfortable space. It connects students based on their location, subject, or textbook and forms a timed Pomodoro study session to foster a healthy productive workflow. Students can record down their goals and keep track of the tasks they’ve accomplished during the session to hold each other accountable.

Students also get to unlock special achievements using certain set features such as by chatting with a new buddy, befriending them, or completing their first session. The rewards help motivate students to accomplish their set goals and build rewarding connections with their study buddies.

How we built it

We build StudyCo using Figma, Animaze, React, Python. Typescript, HTML/CSS and JS

Challenges we ran into

AR and VR is a new and exciting realm of technology, but can also bring a lot of unexpected technical difficulties. It was challenging to find products that used avatars and also accommodate real-time body tracking. We were able to overcome this problem by merging different newly formed software/programs such as Animaze, OBS Studio, and Real Player Me. Learning how this software worked together took time to understand, but the outcomes based on what we have learned will definitely carry onto our future projects.

We also faced challenges in setting up the typescript project. After trying many git commands the issue was to initialize a local repo.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

AR and VR are a realm of specialty that was new to all of us, so we are very proud to have made a significant process in terms of what we have learned and what we have achieved during this hackathon.

What we learned

We learned how to implement APIs, incorporate body-tracking software, form 3D-based avatars out of real-life images

What's next for StudyCo

Our main priority of developing StudyCo even further is to fully incorporate the moving virtual avatar into our video sessions smoothly. We would also like to add an onboarding process in which students fill out their general education details to build better matches. Users would also be able to customize their avatars based on their personal preferences.