VHAX

Imagine incentivizing volunteering? Rewarding users for being selfless and making the world a more peaceful place to live in? VHax makes gamifying volunteerism a reality.

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Inspiration

Our group sought to create an app that encouraged volunteerism. We were fascinated by the social media app Snapchat, specifically where users continue to be engaged in the app due to the app's streak feature. With support from a paper that described a layout for gamifying (https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=infolit_usra), an undergraduate paper made in 2011 plus the established psychosocial model of goal-directed behavior, we believed that an app like Vhax would be good for the world.

What it does

The purpose of this website is to incentivize United States volunteers by rewarding them for volunteering. As users maintain a volunteering streak, they are rewarded with tokens that can be used for shopping discounts and other prizes to be determined by potential sponsors. Their profile will include all the volunteering work they did, and the amount of streaks they've accumulated. A leaderboard, with an option for overall or by volunteer category, will show who has the most streaks and those who volunteer the most hours.

How we built it

The website was mainly built with HTML and CSS. There is some Java and Javascript coding in there as well, which will be further used to develop the login screen; leaderboard; and other social media aspects of the website. The Android application was primarily built with Android Studio.

Challenges we ran into

The team are all beginners to both coding and hackathons, so they have some lack of experience, such as in backend coding, user interface, and user experience. This has led to difficulties in developing a working example. Furthermore, the time limit has made us exclude some pieces that we might not have otherwise excluded.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The Vhax app is the first of its kind: It has revolutionised the way volunteering works without hiding its services behind a paywall. Through a simple gamification system, Vhax will make volunteering more enjoyable and engaging for everyone. Coupling the incentivization with socialization and achievements, Vhax believes that it will increase volunteer retention and decrease volunteer burnout for all participating in the United States.

What we learned

We learned more about markup languages, and how to build an app from scratch. Also, we learned how to work in a team that is under intense pressure to complete such a task in a short, strict deadline window.

What's next for VHAX

In the future, Vhax would like to fully develop the application to completion. We would also like to have a proper plan and layout for the leaderboards and the point system. In addition, we would like to include the tokens option where users can get discounts for purchases in other companies, and this would also mean outreaching and partnering with sponsors for our application.

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