LunaFlow

Inspiration

When looking for a potential project, we were able to focus on a well-researched idea that addressed an important issue for many women. For the longest time apps utilized by women with a focus on logging and staying informed about their individual menstrual cycle have requirements, in many cases, for important informational functions to be locked behind a pay wall. Combining this fact with a severe lack of woman’s health education and general sex education in many public school systems means that not only are many women and young girls left to once again pay extra for a product that solely benefits them and their daily physical and mental health but they are truly **forced** to pay for these services if they want to stay informed on what is happening with their body. 
From this we have created a web application which fits many of these important attributes in a logging and informational system and provides them to whoever needs it for free.

What it does

By using and ingenious logging system with a design focus on ease of user experience and creating a comfortable healthy environment for our users to be healthy, LunaFlow is able to log various attributes which are important to understanding which part of the cycle specific women are on any given day. By combining this information gathering with a sophisticated algorithm for calculating predicted stages, LunaFlow can accurately inform users about what is happening with their body. Along with providing individualized predictions, LunaFlow also utilizes generative AI to inform users on possible things which may help them depend on their logged mood or mental state for any given day. 
LuaFlow also has a custom calendar page which can show users all of their past “Journal Entries” to the LunaFlow system. This allows users to not only receive up to date predictions and information on the now and the possible future, but also to be constantly informed about past events for their own judgement and further information. The LunaFlow statistics page contains valuable information logged by the user for a given day so that they can review it at any time. By taking time to focus our user experience and UI on being easy to use, understand, and navigate. LunaFlow is able to also create a premium experience while still offering its services to end users for free.

How we built it

One main focus of our ideation and creation process was the brainstorming of how we could reduce cost to the point that we could offer LunaFlow to all users for free. One idea was to partner with charitable or publicly funded organizations which have a focus on women’s health, wellness, and safety. Through these partnerships we could keep banners on our website with important information these organizations are constantly trying to show to as many people as possible. By striving to partner with these institutions focused on helping women, we would be able to cover the operating costs of data storage, and back-end processing.
Aside from the social focus of our project we utilized many technologies to create the best experience possible for end users. Our web app was built with a front end using ReactJS and TailwindCSS, running off of a backend hosted by Firebase, specifically utilizing Firebase Authentication and Firestore Database. By using Firebase we’re able to easily and securely manage user accounts and data as well as easily organize the ever-growing collection of important user information to accurately give them informed and updated predictions. To create a rough design for LunaFlow we also worked in Figma to create a reference for our goal of the final web app. We designed an algorithm that based on user input, allowed us to roughly predict the users cycle using the average cycle times. In addition, we were able to analyze user input in the form of journaling and a questionnaire to provide context to the user’s cycle using generative AI to personalize the advice given to each user.

Challenges we ran into

For most of our team, this was our first experience not only with React, TailwindCSS, Firebase, and JavaScript but with any of these technologies at all. Designing a working code base with little experience in these technologies was difficult, but it was a major step toward building production-ready web applications and an incredibly informative learning process.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Being able to create a fully working React app using Firebase backend services. We are also all very proud of our team’s ability to cross interdisciplinary barriers to combine all of our unique skills and knowledgebase to create an actually useful and working web application that also looks and feels good to use.

What we learned

Through the course of this project, we gained experience in both development and user-focused design. For most of us, it was our first time using React, TailwindCSS, Firebase, and Javascript, and we learned a lot about these technologies. We learned how to set up communication between the backend and frontend, and how to make reusable, useful components that helped cut the development time. We deepened our understanding of algorithm design, especially in the context of a complex system, and learned how to use generative AI within our app. This project also taught us a lot about collaboration, and we overcame a lot of challenges through our teamwork.

What's next for LunaFlow

Some major next steps for LunaFlow would include researching more cost effective means of information gathering and reporting. Some examples would be switching to open-source generative AI like Deepseek. Another means of creating a more accurate prediction on what’s coming up for individual users can be the inclusion of algorithms like Kalman Filters. Over enough time, this type of algorithm could not only more and more accurately predict what next steps may be coming for users but also would provide an accurate means for positively identifying anomalies in someone’s menstrual cycle. These kinds of changes would help to reduce overall operating cost and be able to improve the user experience without having to start charging women more (or at all) for the editions. 
Some other future improvements would include a means for users to easily share their logged, predicted, or current stage information with another person easily or through form of creating groups. Allowing for easy sharing between patients and doctors, or significant others. Finally, we would strive to constantly follow the most up-to-date research on this process to constantly have as much useful information logged as possible for accurate user results. We’d also like to introduce even more secure encryption practices, as the data is sensitive and we want to protect our users as best as possible.