Inspiritation

The three of us care deeply about our pets, but we’ve experienced firsthand how challenging it can be to keep them healthy. As busy college students, even simple tasks, like remembering to feed our pets, can be difficult. We realized that a single, easy-to-use app could make caring for our pets less stressful while significantly improving their quality of life. That belief is what inspired PocketPaws.

What it does

The main focus of PocketPaws is to save pet owners the time and stress that comes with maintaining their pets’ health. Our app is designed to identify specific breeds and sizes in order to create a lifestyle plan that best suits each pet. And the best part? All we need is a few pictures of a pet and a short questionnaire. From there, we provide a detailed diet and exercise plan tailored to their needs.

We will accomplished this by creating a database that allows our algorithm to identify specific breeds. We then plugged in the ideal proportions for each bread to and used image measuring tools to identify whether the pets proportions align. We use this data to

How we built it

We began with a clearcut plan and expectations for the project. Then we assigned each member with specific tasks such as designing the chatbot, creating the UI, building the database, etc.

Challenges we ran into

Originally we wanted to create a program that could identify a pet's weight from the picture however this limited our options to only specific pictures and made it difficult to create a good database. We then decided to create a database with different breeds that would allow or program to identify them. We then used a distance measures tool to identify the animal's proportions with regards to their breed which would tell us whether they were at their ideal weight.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are most proud of creating an app that could not only benefit our own lives but potentially impact the lives of many others.

What we learned

We learned how to create functioning databases for machine-learning, how to use platforms like Featherless.ai, and how to work as a team to work toward a shared goal.

What's next for PocketPaws

We hope to create a Tamagotchi-like design that will provide users with timely reminders, keeping them accountable for their pet’s health and making sure they never forget their dinner again. By partnering with trusted food and toy brands, PocketPaws could also remove the burden of researching healthy products, making responsible pet care easier than ever. Another essential part of a pet’s well-being is socialization, which is why we could create a friend-finding feature. Not every pet owner knows other pet owners, and building those connections can be difficult. PocketPaws would simplify the process by helping people's pets find compatible friends nearby. How does would it work? Similar to a dating app, the user would share the location, and the health and lifestyle information we already have would help match their pet with potential friends—making socialization safe, simple, and fun.