Breaks Without Barriers

Inspiration

Being a student isn't easy. There are so many things that you have to be on top of, but it can't be difficult to organize your study sessions effectively. We were inspired to create Breaks Without Barriers to provide students with a mobile companion to aid them in their study sessions.

What it does

Our app has several features that can help a student plan their studying accordingly, such as a customizable to-do list as well as a built-in study and break timer. It also holds students accountable for maintaining their mental and physical well-being by periodically sending them notifications -- reminding them to drink some water, check their posture, and the like. In the hustle and bustle of schoolwork, students often forget to take care of themselves!

We also incorporated some fun elements such as a level-up feature that tracks your progress and shows where you stand in comparison to other students. Plus, the more you study, the more app themes you unlock! You are also given some personalized Spotify playlist recommendations if you prefer studying with some background music.

Students can connect with each other, by viewing each other's profiles and exchanging their contact information. This allows students to network with other students, creating an online community of like-minded individuals.

How we built it

We split our group into sub-teams: one for front-end development and another for back end-development. The front-end team designed the proposed app user-interface using Figma, and the back-end team created functional software using Python, Tkinter, SpotifyAPI, and twilio technologies.

The main framework of our project is built with Tkinter and it is composed of 3 programs that interact with each other: backend.py, frontend.py and login.py. Frontend.py consists of the main GUI, while backend.py is called when external functions are needed. Login.py is a separate file that creates a login window to verify the user.

Challenges we ran into

This was actually the first hackathon for all four of us! This was a new experience for us, and we had to figure out how to navigate the entire process. Most of us had limited coding knowledge, and we had to learn new softwares while concurrently developing one of our own. We also ran into issues with time -- given a period of 36 hours to create an entire project, we had troubles in spreading out our work time effectively.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of creating an idea that was oriented toward students in helping them navigate their trials. We're also just proud of successfully completing our very first hackathon!

What's next for Breaks Without Barriers

In the future we plan to implement more features that will connect individuals in a much more efficient way, including moderated study sessions, filtered search and an AI that will provide users with studying information. We also want to further develop the spotify function and allow for music to be played directly through the api.