The Isolation Solution

Social distancing policies enacted the world over during the COVID-19 pandemic have left many people socially isolated. Your challenge is to develop innovative solutions to combat social isolation.

Bunchup - The Online Community Builder

Summary

Create and discover hubs for online activities.

How We Addressed This Challenge

Bunch Up

The Lockdown Problem

In this new age of social lockdown, many have turned to video games and other online activities to stay entertained and connected. 

However, those without existing social groups to mingle with may find themselves playing alone. 

The online matchmaking of games and services fails to introduce people, and so, these interactions manage to still feel lonely.

A Solution to Social Isolation

We're developing a platform of communities to bring people together.

By allowing users to join 'activity hubs' and mingle with the people they play with, the online activity experience is greatly improved.

Benefiting Astronauts

Our platform uses data analysis to discover the activities that specific demographics participate in. With this data, we can recommend more relevant or accessible hubs and activities  to people.

Astronauts suffering from isolation on spaceflight can go to the front page and have customised recommendations that better suit their circumstances. For example, we can push a hub with users in similar work circumstances, or online activities that aren't affected by high latency.

Space Agency Data

We're referencing HI-SEAS in order to identify isolation problems and target them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HI-SEAS

Loneliness in Isolation Data

Gaming usage is up 75-percent, but people still feel lonely.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gaming-usage-up-75-percent-coronavirus-outbreak-verizon-reports-1285140

How We Developed This Project

Inspiration

Our solution targets a gap in the 'social pipeline' of online gaming communities that we suffered from.

Essentially, it's incredibly hard to find established communities or start one yourself. There's millions of Discord and Slack servers out there that connect people that already know each other, but getting involved in these is often by chance.

We want to interface eager individuals with the ability to create and participate these online communities.

Development

We're using a Python Django web server, styled with Bootstrap CSS. 

Chat rooms are implemented through JavaScript web sockets.

Prototyping through Adobe XD.

Project Demo

Bunchup Trailer (Demo)

YouTube: https://youtu.be/2ODhkrFTfQo

Tags
#social media, #web app, #fun, #activities, #hubs
Global Judging
This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Global Judging process.