LatLatLong.LAB - Space Apps Challenge

LatLatLong.LAB| The Isolation Solution

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.

HIYA - Stress reduction through communication

Summary

In a life of self-imposed activity and physical isolation due to COVID-19, talking to someone relieves loneliness and anxiety.HIYA is a chat app that aims to support people who want to talk to someone about themselves, not to meet people.

How We Addressed This Challenge

Delving into the issues

We have chosen to "communicate with someone" as a way to reduce the risk of loneliness and isolation. Here are a few ideas for that: LED lights that tell you what's going on outside even if you can't go out, hardware that makes you feel physically present without being face-to-face, etc. Out of that, We picked up on "dialogue," which is the basis of communication.
For factual data on the effectiveness of the face-to-face approach, we refer to examples from NASA, JAXA, and ESA.

Survey of communication through dialogue

The communication app market is a red ocean. The team discussed the novelty required for our project. We also tried out an existing chat app and looked at points for improvement.
During the discussion, we realized that getting together on a set date and time with online tools such as Zoom, Teams, and Facetime was stressful in itself, so we focused on easier, more casual, and easier-to-integrate communication into our daily lives.

Functional brush-up for core users

In this project, the following users are expected to use the app:

People who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are hospitalized.
People who stay at home due to lockdown or self-restraint recommendations
People who can't go out easily due to child-rearing, etc.

We have a team member who is our third core user, so we aimed for an app that she would want to use.

How We Developed This Project

- What inspired your team to choose this challenge?

If you test positive for COVID-19, you won't even see your family. Some people become seriously ill and die alone. As technology evolves, can't we get rid of loneliness? We chose this challenge because we wanted to face the risks that could happen to anyone close to us.

- How did you use space agency data in your project?

We referred to research results and examples from NASA, JAXA, and ESA on the effectiveness of communication.

- What tools, coding languages, hardware, software did you use to develop your project?

HTML/CSS/JavaScript/Vue.js(Nuxt.js)/Node.js(Express)
Heroku/Github/VSCode/Zoom/jamboard/mural/PhotoShop/Illustrator
WebRTC(SkyWay)/WebSocket(socket.io)/

- What problems and achievements did your team have?

It was more difficult than usual to communicate with the team members, which is not too much of a problem for a hackathon in a real place.

For example:

Pair Programming and Mob Programming
-> We use not only Zoom, but also Github and free tools like Jamboard and Mural.

Difficulty in determining ideas
-> We couldn't decide at all. In the end, we decided on the idea that motivated the members the most
-> One reason is the difficulty of developing hardware remotely. We had an idea to make hardware. However, it is difficult to divide tasks, so we gave up on that idea.