Overview
Our team participated in the WINFO 11th annual hackathon which had a theme called "Reframe, Build, Innovate Onwards". The purpose of the theme is to create a solution using past experiences and think of new services that can help our world in the future, so we created Whalebeing which is a gamified food-tracking app that promotes healthy eating and sustainability.
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We had one coder, and I was one of the three designers on the team.
Duration
9 hours
Team
Linh Chi Le, Dhruv Ashok, Sheamin Kim, Varsha Venkatesan
Tools
Figma
Type
Hackathon
PROBLEM
Eating healthy and food sustainability can be difficult to track
In today’s world, eating healthy can be hard because it's easy to buy processed food for a quick meal. However, this lifestyle has a negative effect on humans in the long-term and can ruin their health. Adding on, food sustainability is not often talked about enough, which can impact both humans and the planet.
DESIGN QUESTION
How can we make eating healthy more fun and teach users about food sustainability without focusing on losing weight?
SOLUTION
A gamified food tracker that educates
Whalebeing is an app that promotes healthy eating, sustainability, and food accessibility. Users are able to log healthy and well balanced meals to keep their pet healthy. Through educational lessons on sustainability and food insecurity, users will gain tokens that they can use to add accessories to their pet.
Competitive Analysis
Before the hackathon, we decided to research the existing food tracker apps to see if there were already solutions that allow users to track their food without the idea of losing weight since we realize that people may be sensitive to topics like those. We were also looking to see if the apps focus on food sustainability and food insecurity.
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However, none of these apps checked all of the requirements. We wanted Whalebeing to be a platform for those who want to eat healthy and care about the planet, while also being a safe spot for users who did not want to focus on losing weight and counting calories.
MyFitnessPal
Lifesum
Dining Note
Whalebeing
Tracks food
Focuses on food sustainability
Sources for food banks
Not focused on weight loss
Final Screens
Survey for new users
When users sign up, there is a survey that has to be filled out to determine the amount of nutrients the user needs
Home Page
The health bar and mood level of the animal changes depending on what the user eats
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We hope that taking care of a pet makes users more consistent with tracking their food and eating healthy
Shop
Users have the option to change their pet and buy clothes for them using coins
Logging meals
Users can enter in their meals each day
Learning library
Teaches users about where their food comes from, food facts, and food sustainability
REFLECTION
My first ever hackathon helped me learn a few lessons
1) Teamwork is important. With less than 9 hours to create a prototype, it was crucial for us to work together so that we could be efficient. We split up the screens and updated each other on what we were doing, as well as discussed which tasks to prioritize.
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2) Don't be scared to ask for help. During the event, we had mentors who checked up on us every few hours. This was helpful because we could ask them about their opinions on our ideas and design. Their input helped us figure out which direction to take with our app.
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Even though my team did not win first place, I am proud of us for becoming finalists and competing with over 50 teams in our very first hackathon! I would like to thank my team and the mentors there for an amazing hackathon experience!
