Googley Boogley Healthy Study Buddy

Inspiration

We wanted to make something useful that we could conceivably use, so we chose a project that could help us study (our only pass time). Since we don’t touch grass much and neglect to take care of ourselves during school, the healthy aspect of this is supposed to be that it gives you reminders/motivation to take care of yourself (rest, drink water, sleep 7+ hours). We decided to make it a Chrome extension because none of us had ever done it before, and it seemed fun to learn. We’re actually quite proud of it since it works.

What it does

It has a timer (adjustable to your needs, but designed for the Pomodoro method) which reminds you to take breaks after focusing for a certain amount of time, letting your body and mind rest It gives you a checklist of “healthy activities” (sleep 7 hours, drink water etc.) to complete every day, which you can add to (and use as a general daily to-do list) It has the ability to play royalty free lofi (we used this feature while actually making the rest of the extension lol), which not only helps with focus while studying but can be used as a way to distress/meditate/calm down, you could combo it with the rest function in the timer and just take a break for 5+ mins

How I built it

We built it using a mixture of html, css, and javascript (json as well). We synched all of our work to github and used vs code to constantly update everyone. We decided to split the work up so that one of us would work on a timer, the other on the pick-me-up button, another on the music, and another on the to-do list. We used live servers to make each section its own html page and had one person compile it all into the extension. We all contributed and helped each other where we could.

Challenges I ran into

We had many. Since most of us hadn’t worked with html, css, and javascript in any meaningful capacity, it was a struggle learning (solved by our MVP, who actually knew what he was doing). Chrome extensions are supposed to close when a tab is switched/you click off of it. That’s problematic when the point of the extension is to run timers and music. It was painful trying to figure out how to make it so that when you clicked on the extension, it would make a new window with our application. Making an image show up in a tab when you click a button was a 2-day endeavour filled with many Google searches and tears, in the end, we had to eliminate it sadly, as we couldn’t get it to work in a new window in time. Pushing and pulling did not need to cause as much grief as they did, we did not appreciate it. The alarm was a process, as was debugging it during 1 am sessions. It looks awesome, though.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

It works! The timer looks awesome, and the background is super aesthetic and frames everything perfectly. The images pop up when you click the button (finally!), the to-do list works, it's great!

What I learned

3/4 of us used Java as our primary language, so we went in blind and tried to use 3 new programming languages. We can safely say we now know much more about css, html, and javascript (including whatever json is). We also learned how to make a chrome extension which is really interesting.

What's next for Googley Boogley Healthy Study Buddy

We want to add more music to the playlist, more encouraging messages, and iron out the timer a bit more (include a long rest button/automate the timer switching between focus and rest when using the Pomodoro technique etc.). If possible, we’d also like to make the to-do list more easily visible, and make the pick-me-up button more functional by letting it change colors when pressed. Other than that, in the long run we could make this extension far more functionally “healthy” by adding things like a sleep tracker and giving the ability to keep a journal entry/reflect on your day and save it in the extension.