TowerDay

Save your phone's screen time and construct tower.

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Inspiration

Instagram, X, Threads, YouTube, and Snapchat. Right now, we have a countless number of apps that entice younger generations to be "addicted" with them. Me, also as one of them, struggled in keeping my hands from approaching to my phone when I have school assignments that I really should consider them the highest priority. This had gave me the inspiration: "What if there is an app that makes me WANT to stop from using phone?"

In my opinion, students could refrain from using their phone much effectively when they are more willing to do so, rather than when their parents install the conventional "phone lock apps."

By gamifying their journey of limiting their daily screen time, this app made it possible for the struggling to student achieve a good balance of breaks and "locked in" states.

What it does

The operation of the app is intentionally designed to be simple. Every day when the user open the app, they have to set their goal "screentime." When their actual screen time for one particular day was lesser than their goal, a new floor would be added to their tower. Plus, users could record one tiny diary for the day in each floor.

Once their actual screen time for the day exceeds their goal, the entire tower collapses, and they will lose all their progresses.

When the users' tower collapsed, there are two options:

  1. By purchasing the "Reconstruction Kit," the users could fix the collapsed tower, regaining all the progresses OR
  2. Start all over again

How we built it

Firstly, the core operation code is developed by AI, and the UIs and the images used are developed by me. The structure of the app looks like this: I tried to keep the app's internal structure organized so that even when the app gets complicated in the future, it's easy to track what I should keep inside each folder. All the files inside the folder named "service" are related with the code that does the work behind the scenes. The file in Model folder demonstrates what each day which the goal was achieved looks like. The combination of these organized file structures made it possible for me to complete the creation of this masterpiece without feeling overwhelmed by the incredible amount of code.

Challenges we ran into

Throughout the course of developing this app, I ran into multiple difficulties, including the app testing without using the virtual device emulator and working on RevenueCat Test Store SDK which introduced me to the real-world app marketing situation for the first time in my life.

Whenever I am testing my app, I utilize the browser's default Toggle Device Emulator. However, due to the unique characteristic of my app which requires access to a real mobile devices' screentime, I had to search for some other ways that involve the use of a physical device or an emulator. Initially, I came up with the idea of installing emulator into my VS Code and testing my app through there. However, I later found out that the emulator installed into my file came with multiple issues, such as failure of communication between the emulator and my device. Instead of dealing with that, I have figured that connecting my physical phone with my computer to be a better choice in testing the code, considering the scarce amount of time left since I wanted to spend more time on improving the UIs.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One thing that genuinely made me grow as a software developer is the exposure of myself into the world of real app-marketing. Before then, the major projects that I had worked on only involved the use of ordinal packages and typically stayed inside my laptop's local folders. However, participating in this hackathon had taught me about the fundamentals of creating test stores in my app for in-app purchases, which I have never came across, and enhanced my skills to create something practical.

What we learned

Not only technically, I learned a lot of propound lessons during the hackathon. At the beginning of the hackathon, I found the integration of RevenueCat SDK to be intimidating, just because I have never monetized my app, and I thought that was something way too advanced for students like me to work on. Still, I have decided to dive into it. Reflecting back, the process for it was straightforward than I anticipated. All I had to do was to sign up to RevenueCat, set up product inside it, and connect with it from Vs Code using my API key. I noticed that I am capable of overcoming things that initially looked intimidating by refraining from overthinking and be willing to experience that.

What's next for TowerDay

Although I can proudly declare this app to be fully functioning, it doesn't mean this app is completed. My plan for the future regarding this app is to add more features, such as allowing the users to collect in-app currencies by reaching certain goals (Ex. Use their phone less than their goal for 7-days straight) and purchase the tower's skin. using that. Because of the simplicity of this app's core concept, I have nearly infinite number of ideas I would like to delightfully embed into it!!!

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