Super Support

Game
Super Support
Login
Home
Emergency Call
Register
Game
Image Upload
Form
SafeSpots

Inspiration

Around 1,800 children in the United States alone die each year from the effects of abuse and neglect. This alarming statistic, combined with the prevalence of abuse among youth and the lack of awareness and support, inspired us to create Super Support. The subject of abuse strikes a chord with us especially, because our team is made up of cultures of secrecy. In a lot of our home countries in South and East Asia, things like abuse, divorce, and any sort of situation that could tarnish your reputation is embarrassing and should be avoided. We built Super Support to expose all the things that have been shoved under the rug for so long and give means to victims who won’t have to stand alone anymore.

What it does

Super Support is an app that is disguised as an educational app towards parents however truly assists children facing abuse through awareness and support. Our app first opens up to a screen which allows the user to select between a child and a parent. Selecting parent will take the user to a fake diagnosis page based on how much their child has been practicing Math. When a child first signs up, a trusted adult’s number can be added. After logging in as a child, different selections appear: Monthly Form, Game, Safe Spots, Emergency Call and Image Upload. The game provides information about abuse and then gives selection minigames to educate children about abuse and help them recognize it. The Emergency Call section allows the user to either call their trusted adult or 911. The Monthly Form gives the user many questions about their life and their mental state to help them recognize how they’re feeling, the responses to which are stored in the database. The Safe Spots section allows users to find shelter in dire situations. They can select between police stations and hospitals in their area, which are shown on the map. The Quick Exit button allows the child to quickly bring up math problems on their screen instead of the actual app in cases where their abuser or others are in the same room as them.

How we built it

We built Super Support as a mobile app using Java and XML code in Android Studio. First we created a basic XML layout for our app, then split our main idea into many features. We each explored different features and combined it together into one final app at the end. For the log in, we connected it to a realtime database, and if the username wasn’t in the database, they could register, which would add their username, password, email, and phone number. Then they could login. The Emergency Call section utilizes different methods and functions to allow the user to call a trusted adult’s contact or 911 in case of emergency. The Safe Spots map was created using the MAP SDK and Places Google Cloud APIs. These APIs were incorporated into our app on Android Studio to display a responsive Google Map pinpointing the user’s current location, as well as police stations and hospitals nearby.

Challenges we ran into

Some of the challenges we ran into while creating this app were uploading images and displaying a responsive map. It was difficult to figure out how to save the images, as there was trouble figuring out how to connect the realtime database to the cloud storage. Also there was difficulty figuring out how to have the uploaded images have their own unique names and all displayed. For the map, it was our first time using an external API so we watched multiple tutorials before finally getting the map with the current location to show. We had even more trouble displaying locations nearby because it required the Places API in addition to the Map SDK, but we eventually got this feature to work for safe spots in San Diego and we hope to find a solution even after the hackathon so it works for any location.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Finally getting the map to display was a great accomplishment in our opinion, since that was something we had been struggling with for a long time. It was also our first time using an API, so it felt amazing when we finally got it to work. When trying to save pictures, we ran into many small errors which were not easy to solve. Eventually we were able to get it to about what we wanted.

What we learned

Though we were all somewhat familiar with Java and Android Studio prior to this hackathon, this was one of the most complex apps we’ve made. In fact, it was also our first time using an external API, which made it even more difficult for us. Along the way, we learned more about using Java and XML in the Android Studio IDE and how to implement APIs.

What's next for Super Support

As of now, our app unfortunately only displays police stations and hospitals close to San Diego. However, our code to find the user’s current location does work. One of the main things we hope to fix in our code is to allow the user to see police stations and hospitals nearby to their current location, not just San Diego.