The rapid rise of short-form video content on popular social media platforms has raised concerns about declining attention spans and learning aptitudes among future generations. However, instead of viewing short-form videos as a problem, we saw an opportunity to use this medium as a powerful vehicle for education. This insight led to the creation of Swype, an innovative app designed to enhance students' learning experiences by making education engaging, competitive, and fun.
Swype transforms traditional math practice into an exciting, gamified experience. The app includes several key features:
- Classroom Support: Teachers can seamlessly integrate Swype into their lesson plans, using it to reinforce math concepts taught in class.
- Competition: Students can engage in friendly competition with their peers both within their school and across other schools, fostering a healthy competitive spirit.
- Streak System: To promote consistent practice, Swype rewards students for maintaining daily activity streaks, motivating them to stay engaged with their learning.
- Teacher Preference Controls: Teachers can customize the app's settings to align with their teaching methods and curriculum, ensuring the content is relevant and effective.
The development of Swype involved a multi-step process:
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Brainstorming and Structuring: We used tools like Jamboard and Canva to brainstorm and structure our concept, helping us visualize and plan the app's features and design.
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Collaboration: Our team collaborated using GitHub for version control, ensuring seamless code sharing and file management throughout the development process.
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Content Creation: We created example videos using CapCut, providing engaging educational material as the core content for the app.
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Prototyping: The prototype was built using Swift and SwiftUI, allowing us to create a user-friendly interface with smooth functionality.
One significant challenge we faced was video playback issues within Swype on Swift. The lack of a dedicated library for managing moving videos or preventing them from playing simultaneously required us to devise an efficient solution. We tackled this challenge by implementing lazy loading and creating a view object, which demanded innovative thinking and teamwork.
At Ignition 2024, we achieved several important milestones:
- Functional Demo: Creating a functional demo of Swype was a major accomplishment, enabling us to showcase the app’s potential to educators and stakeholders.
- Team Collaboration: Despite being beginner hackers, our team effectively collaborated, leveraging each other’s strengths in UI design, coding, idea generation, and formal presentations.
- Innovative Solutions: Successfully developing solutions to technical challenges, like the video playback issue, highlighted our ability to think creatively and work efficiently as a team.
The development of Swype was a rich learning experience for all team members. Some of us gained insights into software collaboration, while others learned new programming languages or set up environments on unfamiliar platforms. We discovered the importance of teamwork in covering each other's weaknesses and working together to overcome obstacles. Collaborative research and documentation parsing were key to troubleshooting and ultimately building a successful product.
Swype has immense potential for future growth, with several exciting possibilities:
- In-Game Currency: Introducing in-game currency could enhance engagement, allowing students to earn and spend currency on features and rewards within the app.
- Advertisements: Implementing advertisements could generate revenue to support ongoing app development and maintenance.
- Power-Ups: Adding power-ups would enrich the gaming experience, providing students with additional incentives and rewards for their progress.
- Levelling-Up: Expanding the personal leveling system within the app could introduce new challenges and rewards, keeping the learning experience dynamic and motivating.