https://studybrew.netlify.app/
We started off with the goal to make something we could really use. As college students, we identified a common problem between all of us. While using a normal timer, we often found ourselves counting the seconds as we approached the end of a session. The daunting numbers made us lose motivation, ending our studying earlier than we originally intended to. To combat this, we tried to find an alternative way to display progress that reminds of how far we have come while reducing potential anxiety. Our solution was tea: replacing the timer with the pouring of tea.
StudyBrew is a pomodoro timer that replaces the traditional countdown with a visualization of tea gradually pouring. StudyBrew has variable timer and break length. It also features a user system that stores previous studying habits.
We used React as our main framework, Firebase for the backend, and Bulma for CSS styling.
As our team was made up of mostly React beginners, learning frontend in 36 hours definitely a challenge. The hardest part of the process was creating a convincing water simulation, as our timer is the bread and budder of our app. We ran into a whole bunch of random issues like the cup leaking, or the handle of the cup of itself would fill up with water.
We are definitely most proud of our UI. Although it might be a little wonky sometimes, it felt wonderful to have an idea in our head and see our ideas come to fruition. We poured our heart and soul into each and every page and we think that shows.
Above all, we learned how to persevere. Whether it was rogue back end completely shutting down our website, or trying to wrap our head around CSS (we still don't understand it), somehow we managed to continue chugging through.
Hopefully we could add a social component to encourage users to study more, like a user leaderboard.