## Inspiration

✨ In a world that can sometimes feel overwhelmingly negative, we wanted to create an oasis of positivity. The inspiration for **harbor.ed** comes from the calming effect that the ocean and its inhabitants have on many people. As students, we often crave for the need to be cared for, and of course, habored. We envisioned a digital sanctuary where individuals could find comfort and companionship in the form of sea creatures, each with a unique personality designed to uplift and support. Especially to international students who may not have a chance to see their family for months at a time, it is often to feel lonely or sad with no one there to watch out for your feelings - Harbour.ed is your safe space:

## What it does

🌊 Harbor.ed is an interactive online space where individuals feeling down or distressed can find solace and encouragement. Users visit our website and choose from a variety of sea creatures to converse with. These friendly fishes engage in supportive dialogue, offering words of encouragement. Utilizing advanced emotion detection technology, our platform identifies when a user is particularly sad and prompts the sea creatures to provide extra comfort, ensuring a personalized and empathetic experience.

## How we built it

✨ Our project harnesses a diverse tech stack, as illustrated in the architecture diagram.
The client-side is supported by technologies like **React**, Sass, and JavaScript, ensuring a seamless and engaging user interface.
The server-side is bolstered by **Google Cloud** and **GoDaddy**, providing robust and scalable hosting solutions. We've leveraged **MongoDB Atlas** for our database needs, ensuring efficient data management.
The heart of Harbor.ed's empathetic interaction comes from the **OpenCV** and **AWS-powered** **emotion detection** and the innovative use of cohere APIs, which allow our sea creatures to respond intelligently to users' emotional states.

## Challenges we ran into

🌊 Integrating the emotion detection technology with real-time chat functionality posed a significant challenge. Ensuring user privacy while processing emotional data required careful planning and execution. Moreover, creating a diverse range of sea creature personalities that could appeal to different users was a complex task that demanded creativity and an understanding of psychological support principles. There were many things we ran into during both development and deployment, and being able to ship this project on time is a big accomplishment for us.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

✨ We are particularly proud of creating an environment that not only recognizes emotions but responds in a comforting and supportive manner. Our success in integrating various technologies to create a seamless user experience is a testament to our team's dedication and technical prowess.

## What we learned

🌊 Throughout the development of harbor.ed, we learned the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, combining elements of psychology, technology, and design. We also gained valuable insights into the technical aspects of real-time emotion detection and chatbot development. Many technologies like Langchain and OpenCV were also first time uses for some of our members, and seeing everything come together is extremely rewarding.

## What's next

✨ The future of harbor.ed is bright and bustling with potential. We plan to expand the range of sea creatures and personalities, improve our emotion detection algorithms for greater accuracy, and explore partnerships with mental health professionals to refine the support our digital creatures can provide. Our ultimate goal is to create a global community where everyone has access to a virtual sea of support.
## Inspiration

It took us a while to think of an idea for this project- after a long day of zoom school, we sat down on Friday with very little motivation to do work. As we pushed through this lack of drive our friends in the other room would offer little encouragements to keep us going and we started to realize just how powerful those comments are. For all people working online, and university students in particular, the struggle to balance life on and off the screen is difficult. We often find ourselves forgetting to do daily tasks like drink enough water or even just take a small break, and, when we do, there is very often negativity towards the idea of rest. This is where You're Doing Great comes in.

## What it does

Our web application is focused on helping students and online workers alike stay motivated throughout the day while making the time and space to care for their physical and mental health. Users are able to select different kinds of activities that they want to be reminded about (e.g. drinking water, eating food, movement, etc.) and they can also input messages that they find personally motivational. Then, throughout the day (at their own predetermined intervals) they will receive random positive messages, either through text or call, that will inspire and encourage. There is also an additional feature where users can send messages to friends so that they can share warmth and support because we are all going through it together. Lastly, we understand that sometimes positivity and understanding aren't enough for what someone is going through and so we have a list of further resources available on our site.

## How we built it

We built it using:

* AWS
	+ DynamoDB
	+ Lambda
	+ Cognito
	+ APIGateway
	+ Amplify
* React
	+ Redux
	+ React-Dom
	+ MaterialUI
* serverless
* Twilio
* Domain.com
* Netlify

## Challenges we ran into

Centring divs should not be so difficult :(
Transferring the name servers from domain.com to Netlify
Serverless deploying with dependencies

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our logo!
It works :)

## What we learned

We learned how to host a domain and we improved our front-end html/css skills

## What's next for You're Doing Great

We could always implement more reminder features and we could refine our friends feature so that people can only include selected individuals. Additionally, we could add a chatbot functionality so that users could do a little check in when they get a message.
## Inspiration

The idea for VenTalk originated from an everyday stressor that everyone on our team could relate to; commuting alone to and from class during the school year. After a stressful work or school day, we want to let out all our feelings and thoughts, but do not want to alarm or disturb our loved ones. Releasing built-up emotional tension is a highly effective form of self-care, but many people stay quiet as not to become a burden on those around them. Over time, this takes a toll on one’s well being, so we decided to tackle this issue in a creative yet simple way.

## What it does

VenTalk allows users to either chat with another user or request urgent mental health assistance. Based on their choice, they input how they are feeling on a mental health scale, or some topics they want to discuss with their paired user. The app searches for keywords and similarities to match 2 users who are looking to have a similar conversation. VenTalk is completely anonymous and thus guilt-free, and chats are permanently deleted once both users have left the conversation. This allows users to get any stressors from their day off their chest and rejuvenate their bodies and minds, while still connecting with others.

## How we built it

We began with building a framework in React Native and using Figma to design a clean, user-friendly app layout. After this, we wrote an algorithm that could detect common words from the user inputs, and finally pair up two users in the queue to start messaging. Then we integrated, tested, and refined how the app worked.

## Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges we faced was learning how to interact with APIs and cloud programs. We had a lot of issues getting a reliable response from the web API we wanted to use, and a lot of requests just returned CORS errors. After some determination and a lot of hard work we finally got the API working with Axios.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

In addition to the original plan for just messaging, we added a Helpful Hotline page with emergency mental health resources, in case a user is seeking professional help. We believe that since this app will be used when people are not in their best state of minds, it's a good idea to have some resources available to them.

## What we learned

Something we got to learn more about was the impact of user interface on the mood of the user, and how different shades and colours are connotated with emotions. We also discovered that having team members from different schools and programs creates a unique, dynamic atmosphere and a great final result!

## What's next for VenTalk

There are many potential next steps for VenTalk. We are going to continue developing the app, making it compatible with iOS, and maybe even a webapp version. We also want to add more personal features, such as a personal locker of stuff that makes you happy (such as a playlist, a subreddit or a netflix series).