JourNow

Inspiration

A recognized issue for our generation is mental health, specifically the intersection between social media toxicity and mental health. And yet, besides the universal solution ~therapy~, there are not many attractive options to choose from when struggling with mental health. Inspired by the community-favorite social media app, BeReal, we are taking a more direct approach of addressing mental wellness through its predetermined enemy: social media.

What it does

Our take on the issue, JourNow, is a direct approach of addressing mental wellness through social media through targeted prompts at random times in the day as a daily check up between friends or a private journal entry. The app will promote communication and mental awareness in teenagers and young adults by providing the users a platform to share thoughts and experiences that are not always being heard. The underlying foundation of JourNow is to share a piece of their mind in a natural and spontaneous entry to encourage mental health awareness.

How we built it

Used React Native and Javascript to create a cross-platform app for Android and iOS. Used Figma to create UI design prototype.

Challenges we ran into

The first step of innovation, coming up with ideas, is always difficult. The opening ceremony ended and we had no idea where to start as for most of us, this was our first hackathon. To get moving, we held a 1-hour brainstorming session to share ideas and collectively selected which idea we thought was most feasible based on how difficult it would be to implement and social impact. Also, none of us had prior experience with cross-platform app development, so we had to learn JavaScript, React, and React Native from the basics. We also had to spend significant time figuring out how to install and run the technologies we were using such as React Native and Expo Go.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of getting a working mobile app running with navigation and text entry functionality. This is most of our group’s first time competing at a hackathon and we all had little to no experience with the technologies we were working with, so being able to make progress towards our app was a big achievement.

What we learned

We learned collaborative skills through working together to build our app. We also learned how to use basic JavaScript and React Native to develop mobile applications. This is the first time applying classroom knowledge to other projects, so this was a really rewarding experience to work on applications of coding skills we learned in class Learned how a hackathon works!

What's next for JourNow

Completing a finished implementation of the application. Conduct user testing to evaluate effectiveness of current features for our target audience and determine and implement future improvements.