The Virtual Library

Inspiration

Back in the beginning of junior year I started to feel the pressure of schoolwork. However, after summer I wasn't really in the habit of doing homework everyday so when I had to piles of assignments along with hours of exam preparation, I tried every way I could to remain focused on my work. I always wanted to use an app to help me focus better, so I tried apps like Flora but they didn't really help me because I got kind of confused on how to use it. There's also simplistic apps like myHomework but it doesn't really track my studying time. I had this idea in my head of what a study app I would use could look like but I got to attempt to make that vision a reality with this app.

What it does

The Virtual Library puts the student into a desk at a 2d library with some books for taking notes, a timer with goals of how long the student wants each session to be, and a to do list that the student can adjust. When a student completes a session or studies for an hour straight, they will have an achievement in their statistics, to give them a visual representation of their work being recorded. It is intended to bring students to attempt getting in the habit of studying regularly.

How we built it

I used unity and C# with a 2d empty project. I used visual studio for the coding.

Challenges we ran into

At first, it was finding what I wanted to do. Then, I realized my limitations in coding as my only experience has been a little of game development. Suprisingly, one of the least problems I had to deal with was when bugs popped up, as the code I used was really simple. I also felt like I wasn't experienced enough to do a hackathon since I ended doing alot of code that I feel could have been more optomized.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

This was my and Tushita's first hackathon and we tried our best, so even if it didn't turn out as great as we wanted to, we learned alot from our first experience. Tushita learned a little more about how to use her coding skills in different ways, as making a game-like app was different for her.

What we learned

First of all, I learned that I needed to brush up on my coding skills and maybe explore more languages as I was interested in using Python but didn't have any experience.

What's next for The Virtual Library

I really wanted to add sprites and show that the virtual library could be visually appealing to teenagers more than the prototype showed, so I would probably add that in the future first. Also, I would like to add more features, such as documents or links being opened in the books, and one day if it could turn into desktop game where multiple students can go to study that would be a dream.