Inspiration
3 million dogs enter shelters nationwide each year. However, less than half are adopted into new homes. Some shelter dogs may receive human interaction 3 times a day for walks, but are then left by themselves.
PuppyTime changes that!
Talking and interacting with shelter dogs improves their wellbeing and makes them more adoptable. We wanted to provide a new way to benefit shelter dogs and bring joy to the humans that chat with them.
What it does
PuppyTime is a mobile website that enables folks to live video chat with shelter dogs and give them treats. This gives the dog more social time and builds a personal connection between the user and the dog to increase donations and adoption.
How we built it
We built the PuppyTime mobile website with a modified bootstrap template, javascript live video, and PayPal and PetFinder RESTful APIs. The “give a treat” button calls a RESTful service that runs a treat dispensing routine on the Arduino 101 with Grove Shield and stepper motor (written in C).
PuppyTime is running on Amazon Web Services - Route 53, CloudWatch, and S3.
Challenges we ran into
- Software to work with Arduino hardware
- Cable shorts when connecting Arduino components
- Learning new languages/tools
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Our product works! (tested with a real shelter dog at Houndhaven in Florida)
- Working well and building each other up as a team
- An inclusive and informative experience for our 3 first time hackathon participants
What we learned
- How to use an Arduino 101 board
- New languages and tools: HTML/CSS, jQuery, new APIs
- Collaborative and fun ideation techniques
What's next for PuppyTime
- Hook website button to Arduino board to dispense treats
- Match users with a dog at a shelter near their location so they can choose to adopt them or donate to the local shelter
- Design fun video filters as a paid feature to benefit local shelters
- Incorporate Amazon Marketplace to send donations like dog food, treats, toys, etc.
- Allow users to save their favorite furry friends and chat with them again
Live Demo Note
- Please run as mobile in dev tools
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