StudyHaus

Visualization of Equations Underlying the App's Algorithm, Inspired by the Ebbinghaus Curve of Forgetting.
Logo for our study app, StudyHaus.

Inspiration

Due to the pandemic, our final exams for our eighth-grade and freshman years were canceled. As a result, we didn’t prepare ourselves to take finals and AP exams at the end of this year, and we’re finding ourselves struggling to find the time to study materials from all throughout the year within the next couple of months. In order to solve this problem that so many high school and college students struggle with, whether they’ve taken finals before or not, we decided to create an app that would generate a study plan specific to the individual and their courses that would keep them on track throughout the year and ultimately prepare them for the final exam/AP exam.

What it does

Our innovative technology allows users to maximize their comprehension and memory retention of the information they are studying. The user can input topics that they’ve learned and an algorithm, inspired by the Ebbinghaus Curve of Forgetting, calculates exactly when they would need to review the topic throughout the course of the school year and leading up to the final exam date. The app sends reminder notifications to the user on dates that have been assigned to reviewing a topic to ensure that they are consistent with their schedule. If the user does not study on their specific study day, they are able to choose a date on which they would like to make up their review day, and the algorithm will recalculate their study plan for that topic for the rest of the year. Users can either look up topics or input their own information which provides a variety of different study material. Each topic a user creates serves as a mini-database to store links to resources and study materials (such as flashcard decks) and PDFs of the user's notes for that topic (either scanned or uploaded documents). Teachers also have the ability to create teacher accounts, in which they can also create subjects and topics for students who enroll in their class, allowing them to assign reviews and practice tests or upload course materials for students to study.

How we built it

Within the time that we had to create our hack, we were able to work on multiple separate aspects of the application. We used Android Studio to build a simplistic user interface for the application, using pre-set subjects, topics, and resources to demonstrate how each subject could contain multiple topics each with resources such as links to online textbooks, slideshows from class, or handwritten notes. However, in reality, the users would be able to upload their own topics and resources. Therefore, we experimented in Repl.it with account logins. We also worked on the algorithm that the application would use to generate study plans, taking into account factors such as the user’s prior knowledge of the material and how many days were left to review. In order to create the algorithm, we manipulated Ebbinghaus’s equation for the forgetting curve using Desmos as a tool for visualizing the outputs, and then programmed the algorithm in Repl.it.

Challenges we ran into

One of the challenges we ran into was that the online IDE that we were planning on using for our app was blocked on the Chromebooks, making it so we had to find other devices to work on in order to complete our app. This acted as a great inconvenience and caused us to not all be able to work on the code on Repl.it at the same time, which slowed down our production. Another challenge we ran into was that we were using software that we had no prior knowledge of, which proved to be very complex and challenging to use. Android Studio was a program that was very difficult to understand at first, but after we figured it out, it was very helpful in the development of our android application.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One accomplishment that we’re proud of is being able to edit and manipulate Ebbinghaus’s equation for the curve of forgetting so that we could account for factors such as the user’s prior knowledge of the material, the final exam/ap test date, and if the user misses a study day. This allowed us to create the underlying algorithm that takes into account the needs and lifestyles of the user to make them feel comfortable using StudyHaus and want to use our technology to study.

What we learned

We learned how to use Android studio in order to create our app/user interface. Through using this software, we learned how to create buttons that moved between screens, and we learned how to utilize screen fragments. Through this experience, we also learned how to work and communicate better as a team. We were able to combine each other's ideas to create an amazing app that we are very proud of.

What's next for StudyHaus

What's next for StudyHaus is making it available for Apple users as an IOS app and making it a website to increase the number of people that have access to our study planner. We want as many people to be able to use our software, so students no longer have to cram tests and are able to prepare for big tests without the stress of feeling like they don’t have enough time to properly study the material.