Early Birdy

Inspiration

As college students, we constantly hear complaints about alarms and waking up in the morning in general. As millennials we've also noticed a pattern in the very simple, popular apps that sweep through our peers and enable us to engage in addictive, procrastinating behavior. These two factors have inspired us to create an app that utilizes the same model that positively engages people to make them want to wake up in the mornings.

What it does

The app utilizes a simple model of positive reinforcement, in the form of virtual bird collecting, to encourage people to wake up in the mornings. For example, when a person wakes up on time, they are rewarded with a bird, or other prizes that they can then use to build an interactive and expanding world. The app also works to minimize negative reinforcement associated with waking up to the same obnoxious alarm every morning. By providing options to gradually increase the volume, and options to create a different alarm each morning, the app prevents the negative association of the same loud noise with waking. Finally, our research has shown us that, with standard alarms, people will typically turn the alarm off immediately, and fall right back to sleep. We’ve designed simple phone games attached to the alarm, so that in order to turn off the alarm, the user completes the game, and is immediately rewarded with their prize that they can then view. Ultimately, the app synthesizes many practical factors that aid wakefulness into a cutesy, and engaging app. By creating a world that can grow and be interacted with, we’ve created an app that encourages long term use, and fosters positive sleeping and waking behaviors over a period of time.

How we built it

We focused much more on the design aspects of “Early Birdy,” although we did implement some programming in Unity. We researched the daily waking habits of others, as well as how they responded to their usual morning alarm. Once deciding that there was indeed a need for an alarm that uses positive reinforcement, we worked on how the app would be seen and what features should be available to the users.We agreed that the alarm should act simplistically, but we also incorporated small games in order to awaken the brain before starting the day. After deliberating over how the simple alarm aspect would be used, we worked on the bird collection aspect. We decided on a layout that would be accessible to the general app-using public, and tried many different designs for how the birds would look. Our group went through many different iterations of both cute birds and in-game app environments before settling on a simplistic theme that was visually appealing and engaging. Many different aspects of user interface were deliberated over, as we didn’t want the app to be too cluttered or difficult to navigate through.

Challenges we ran into

Because we, as a group, are inexperienced with the process of project development, we ran into some difficulty early on clearly communicating our ideas to each other. After circularly discussing several ideas, we eventually came to a consensus after visually working out our ideas in images and diagrams.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we’re most proud of artistic design of the bird collecting world, and the quirky personalities of each of the birds that you can meet. What initially excited us about this project is the possibility to apply the addicting phone game formula to the cause of helping people improve their quality of life. Also, we are proud that we participated in our first hackathon, and were able to enjoy ourselves while creating something we believe in.

What we learned

We learned most about the process of building a project from scratch, and all of the steps that must be taken to take the project to completion. We learned a lot from how all of the content of the app must be formatted and presented in order to make the app intuitive, and visually appealing.

What's next for >

As a group of friends who initially participated in order to develop our own skills, experience the process of project development, and work together as a team, we plan on furthering our current draft of Early Birdy to completion. We would like a final product to show for the hard work we put in together as a team, and we plan on participating in further events in order to continue to develop our skills and resources.