#Evaluate Unit15 DefiningYourOwnProcess

[nanavatilow-blog]

Tonight we presented our Discover Logo app to the class and received lots of fantastic feedback to integrate into the next iteration of the project implementation. There are a lot of travel apps in the market but Loco really resonates with travelers. A potential target market suggestion could include business travelers who don’t have time to research plans or things to do in the city. Lara validated this experience when she visited Poland on a work related trip recently and another trip where she got to visit a friend. 

Process Reflection

Overall the process followed during the semester was helpful in guiding us to solving an undefined and otherwise unconstrained problem based on the team’s capabilities. Addison, Max, and Ting were such a pleasure to work with - each contributing their respective strengths to ensuring this project was a success. I would have really liked to have additional time for the implementation portion. That week was very rushed and I think if given an additional week, we could have made this project a lot more realistic. Now that Winter break is oncoming and I’ll have more time, I’d love to hash this out further with some of my teammates (plus Kelly cuz she’s super excited for this) and build it out. I’ve always held a deep belief that if more people traveled and understood a global perspective, we’d have more empathy as human kind. Making friends from different parts of the world shows us we have more in common than differences.

Introspectively, this app is more than just traveling but a platform to bring more people together (and better yet... become friends) and bridge divides. Now... Time to build! :D

[nanavatilow-blog]

Evaluate Other Groups

Tonight, we whipped through each of the presentations and overall all the ideas generated demonstrated my classmates’ initiatives and ambitions to make this world a better place by tackling significant problems our world is experiencing.

EMBR - Fire Safety Simulations

Fire Safety Simulations as a mobile fire education opportunity to schools and corporations is a great idea. This problem really resonates with residents in the Southern California area with the current multiple wildfires (6 and counting as of December 7th) over the last 2 weeks. I think this could really benefit residents in knowing what to do and do preparation before the disaster. Additionally, the team did a great job in showing how they pivoted in solving this bigger issue and eventually landed on the EMBR physical fire simulation activities. They have multiple experiences crafted: Family, schools, etc.

The hardest part will be funding as these local municipalities are cash bootstrapped but Sue’s comment about “Pretend Cities” (Irvine) where kids can role play are sponsored by companies could potentially make this a feasible reality.

Connected Cars

Connected Cars is a future I love to contemplate on a daily basis. The concept is really good with the central idea that short range communication can be leveraged to govern the marriage between pedestrian and automobile traffic (a policy-related problem that has been debated since the mid 1900s). We need to be consistently thinking about this problem as autonomous cars have already started hitting the streets. There won’t be a simple solution and programming cars to have ethics is a challenge as they don’t have the empathy of a human even in the minimized probability that a probability will occur. 

The one thing that is hard to reconcile for this solution will be the security of the short range signalling. wDOS attacks and other random phenomenon where short range communication isn’t detected is an ongoing research initiative at some of the top CS universities, 

Food Waste

The expiration date dictating the act of throwing away food was a huge pain point that resonated with everyone in the class. I also really appreciate how the team built out the different functionalities using Adobe XD. I’m going to definitely try using that platform next time I design my an app concept. I liked their idea of the calendar of all expiry dates too. If that could sync to my grocery shopping list or GCal that would be absolutely fantastic. 

They have a solid MVP and their future steps for the rollout of the app is certainly exciting. Particularly the functionality of providing a functionality of a user’s behavior to improve budgeting practices and leveraging data to know average shelf life. This same data can also be utilized to recommend tips (eg. if your food has a lower shelf life than normal, the app can share how to extend that period).