A year ago, did any of us expect we would be working, studying, and sleeping in the same room? Maybe if you’re Elon Musk, you already were. Or maybe if you’re researcher James Paul Gee writing Language and Learning in the Digital Age ten years ago, you saw this coming a long way off.
The digital age is here, and anything that's not tied down is getting uplifted on the winds of change - but in our society, a lot of things ARE tied down. Some very important things. Things like high schools, where the average pupil will spend nearly 4000 hours and make choices that shape the trajectory of their entire lives. Education is probably the most important thing a society can do. But if a society wants to do anything at all, it needs engineers - to build infrastructure, to strengthen the economy, to make their country an international force for good.
Our education system is terrible for engineering.
But all of this crazy change might be good for it.
Now is a good time to watch our presentation video, if you haven’t already. To cut a long story short, we think mobile apps like Duolingo that blend addictive gaming with reinforcement learning are the best way to get high schoolers (12+) excited about engineering.
The Designathon Village doesn’t teach engineering, it lets users live it. Players start from scratch and build up their village, unlocking and maintaining tech by passing short multi-choice quizzes. This app is designed in order to be accessible, educational, and enjoyable to all those who use it - especially those in their high school years.
Bright colours, simple models, and clear fonts prevent information overload; frequent and diverse tasks break down tough engineering concepts. Sustainable choices are incentivised via feedback and consequences for decisions made in the game, emphasising the human impact that engineering projects can have.
Many tasks will be based on real life scenarios, such as previous EWB projects. Where a teacher might struggle to give attention to a class of 20, every positive decision will be rewarded ingame - maintaining the attention of neurodivergent students. Frequent quizzes reinforce learning, while league tables and constant visual development make every visit to Designathon Village enjoyable.
The future of this mobile application is creating a website, which will include more features and expanded tools. The app will be developed and constructed by EWB through students (internships, projects etcetera); this is economically more viable and supports the ideologies of the app as well. Ultimately, the app will allow you to connect with friends and family, creating internal leagues and competitions. The carbon footprint and decisions of one user will begin to affect everyone’s land, ensuring that the user understands that there are “global” consequences for their actions. Schools are able to use the application for academic purposes by allowing pupils access to a specially designed village. They will be able to monitor the progress of every student and the decisions they make, permitting a fun, interactive, and educational homework assignment as courses are available in the app.
A game like this could work, but it takes the right organisation. People won’t connect with the kind of engineering some soulless corp would offer; the real, human issues that EWB deals with are the perfect landscape for this kind of game. So why not? Somebody will.
#D21-07
Julia, thanks for checking ours out. I love the video you made, great tone haha. I can defo see a carbon emissions app being a thing in future. The best apps to draw inspo from might be some of the ones that require users to check in everyday to work like diet, exercise, quitting drinking or smoking, maintaining mental health etc.
The thing the good ones have in common imo is that they take what would otherwise be a monotonous task, defined by what you're NOT doing - trying to reduce the calories consume, stay dry, make some time to do nothing - and make them part of a larger progression arc where you get the satisfaction of pressing a button, receiving a reward, and watching successive rewards build momentum.
Noom and headspace are both really cool in that they tie daily activities into a 'course' so to speak where daily logging is blended with short lessons like something from duolingo or hackerx. I could totally see an app like yours getting users to be more conscious about their environmental impact paired with a 1 - 2 min daily lesson on general sustainability and environmental impact (they're probably interested after all, right?) and of course resulting in a certificate, its crazy how powerful a motivator a printable bit of paper can be. Having a course which requires minimal, but daily attention is essentially just an easy way of getting users to open the app to do one thing but then while they're there they'll probably end up using your core features anyway.
I've heard of forest - its a good principle, if you're offering something of value that connects to an issue people care about then why not give them a button to donate a pound or something? I dont know if forest does this, but another powerful motivator is when users set 'wagers' and put aside some money as an incentive to meet their target. For instance 'I bet 5 pounds I can reduce my carbon footprint 20% this week'. 5 pounds goes into the pot on the app, the app tracks it, if they don't meet their goal it goes to an agreed charity. I think quitzilla might use this? Not sure.
Sharing is ofcourse another powerful motivator. If friends can compare what they're doing then it keeps them engaged on 2 counts: 1) Keeping up with the Joneses, and 2) Fomo / not wanting to be seen to lose streaks. Communities can support each other more directly through forums and the ability to share praise.
So impressed that you managed to get a basic rendition of the app already. If you'd ever like a zoom meeting i'd be more than happy to discuss some of these ideas further and help wherever I can, i've got a few references that you could tie into future pitches.
Hi group D21-07!
I really like how you analysed other successful apps as a part of your creative process. We (team D21-20) have also come up with an app but we are aiming specifically at helping users to minimise their carbon footprint. It would definitely make our app more impactful if we utilised the techniques you propose to engage the users and make the experience reward-based. Perhaps, we could also think of establishing an app-based donation system like in the Forest? I would be keen to exchange ideas and see what we could create together!
Let me know what you think!
Julia