Inspiration
Ethics in technology has been a theme that has interested us for a while. After taking a class called 'Theory of Knowledge' during school, we learned about the ethics and morality behind our use of technology. This inspired us to find a way to combine these two elements, ethics and technology, in a way that could contribute to society in a meaningful way.
What it does
Ethicate is a web app that allows elementary school teachers to instill a lifetime of ethical actions in their students. Using the app, kids learn from a young age about their actions and their consequences; whether their deeds are good or evil, right or wrong. Kids might feel an initial pang of guilt or remorse after committing a bad deed, but this is often forgotten later, taking away the opportunity to learn and grow from their actions. With Ethicate, kids will have a chance to reflect on their deeds and learn to grow into responsible, moral, and ethical people.
How we built it
The front-end was built using HTML and CSS, and we experimented with SASS to do this. The background animations were created with Javascript, and so were the functions involving categorizing deeds into 'good' and 'bad'. We also used Flask to connect the table on the 'tracker' to the inputs.
Challenges we ran into
The main challenge we ran into was formatting the table. This was our first time using SASS, so it was difficult to find suitable commands to make the two sides of the table appear properly constructed. In the end, we made a nested table with the two tables, 'Good' and 'Bad', inside a larger table set into the page.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud of the way we worked together as a team to make this web app come to life. Each member of our team has different strengths and skill sets, but we were able to delegate tasks to appropriate team members to maximize productivity during the short time span, and create an app that can be used to benefit people all over the world.
What we learned
This was our first time combining multiple programming languages into one project. Initially, we thought the only way to make it work was to use only HTML, CSS, and Javascript. However, some of the functions were better suited for Python, but we were unsure how to code the web app in a way that could use all the languages we wanted. This was where we began using Flask, which solved our problem.
What's next for Ethicate
- Add a registration function so each class has a class code which students can use to connect to their teachers
- Add a teacher page where the teachers can oversee all their students' pages and ensure that the points system is consistent
- Consult with child behaviour specialists to make sure the point assignments with each action are fair
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