Cranky Critters

Inspiration

Cranky Critters helps us take a step back from burnout and toxic productivity. Young working adults and students are often way too caught up in the flurry of life, with social media and the Internet further exacerbating the issue. The constant pressure to work has led to negative impacts on mental, emotional, and physical health, like shortened attention spans, lack of energy and enthusiasm, etc. Through Cranky Critters, we want to help young adults find a way to pause, take a breath, do something stupid (not really), and step away from everything, taking a moment for themselves. Be like frog and toad :D

What it does

Each day, two to three random short activities become available on the app. Users can choose to do these activities whenever they desire, and once completed, they can post a photo or short video celebrating their completion to their timeline, visible only to themselves. There is a 6-hour delay between the accessing of each activity. Users will also get to choose a critter and whimsical garden, unlocking accessories and decorations for it with points they gain over time. There are no daily log-in bonuses or rewards for time spent to reinforce that the users get to decide how and when they access Cranky Critters. By facilitating a moment in life away from daily responsibilities and stresses, Cranky Critters helps relieve individuals from constant work and fatigue, renewing a piece of life itself.

How we built it

App's interface designed in Figma. Art created in Procreate. Development with SwiftUI and UIKit in XCode.

Challenges we ran into

The first major challenge we ran into occurred after we decided on a vertical and general concept: we were having trouble figuring out what type of application–web-based, computer, or phone–would best accomplish Cranky Critter’s ultimate goal. Initially, we were thinking of using React and Node to develop a web-based application, but since we wanted to add a game-like aspect with the critter, we were considering developing the app completely through Unity as well. We finally decided on Swift because we felt that offering easy access through an iOS app would fit our goal the best. Nonetheless, this was an ambitious task, with many components, specific details and interactions. None of our members had prior experience with Swift or iOS development, so learning a new language from scratch was a challenging process. However, we were all able to learn a lot and accomplished more than we thought we could with the time we had.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

During this hackathon, we were able to learn a programming language from scratch and build a functional product–all under 36 hours. We are proud to have created something that has the potential to support the many individuals who deal with burnout and toxic productivity, as these are problems that our members and many of their friends and loved ones have struggled with.

What we learned

Overall, we were able to learn multiple different frameworks and collaborate with each other. SwiftUI, UIKit, Github, and Figma are all tools that members from our team were able to explore and implement into our project.

What's next for Cranky Critters

Our next steps…

Use Unity to create our whimsical garden (where our critters live)
Implement a completed iOS app with Firebase, more skills, more time…
Extend to Android platforms to reach Android users
Promoting community interaction by implementing a way for users to share their garden with friends and family