The Good Place

Inspiration

We got the inspiration for our idea mere hours before the hackathon. We got the idea while reading some articles on the internet. We both saw that the real problem was not the lack of apps to help those who are mentally ill but apps for those who were not mentally ill. There were few apps or sites that targeted those who are on the verge of being depressed or being mentally ill. So we decided to build an app to fill this gap

What it does

Our project is a flutter app where we help people based on their mood. We first ask them to sign up and give email ids of their emergency contacts. Then they will be prompted to answer a question where they are happy, sad, or angry. If they are happy, they will be asked why they are happy and some advice they would like to give to those who are not, and we suggest them some Spotify playlists. If they are sad, they are shown randomly selected advice from those who are happy and are suggested some games and Spotify playlists cheer them up. If they are angry, they are asked why they are angry and they are also shown randomly selected advice from those who are happy. They are also shown some Spotify playlists to help them out. We also provide them with a shout zone where they can rant or abuse freely and anonymously. We added this feature because studies show that having a place to rant can help people deal better with emotion. On the home screen, there is also an SOS button which will send emails to all of their emergency contacts telling them that one of their loved ones needs help.

How we built it

We built the app using Flutter and Dart while using Firebase as our primary authentication and data storage tool. We also used packages from pub.dev to help implement features. Our primary IDE used was Visual Studio Code and Android Studio.

Challenges we ran into

Throughout the hackathon, we ran into multiple challenges. The first one was when we rethought our entire idea just hours before the hackathon as we felt our original idea wasn't unique enough. The next challenge we ran into was when one of the teammate's computers kept crashing and he was unable to run the app on his phone due to version issues. This challenge posed a serious threat to us as a single person would not be able to build the app on his own. Therefore, we research on the internet and finally found an online IDE built especially for flutter for him to write code on. We also ran into challenges while implementing features as we faced bugs and rendering issues. However, we solved them by scanning intensely through multiple sites and asking each other for help.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The biggest accomplishment that we're proud of is that we didn't let any challenge stop us from reaching our goal. When we didn't feel our idea was good, we rethought it. When there were issues in the code, we debugged them. When our system kept crashing, we found alternatives. But, we also kept going through and never thought of giving up. We are also proud of the fact that we could implement all the features we had envisioned without any compromise

What we learned

We learned a lot during this hackathon. We learned how to use firebase authentication, firestore and how to correctly render data from firestore. We also learned how to make our app look pleasing and work in the way intended.

What's next for The Good Place

Unlike most teams, who abandon their idea after the hackathon, we want to take it forward. We want to distribute it so that people can actually be benefitted from it.