Saturday, December 12, 2015

Food Run

Food Deserts are a huge problem in the United States that effect over 23.5 million people. According to the USDA, “food deserts are defined as urban neighborhoods and rural towns without access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. These communities only have access to fast food and convenience stores that offer few affordable food options."

Food Run is an organization that strives to connect those living in food deserts in the Memphis area with each other to form carpool groups so they can travel outside of the desert to purchase fresh food from high quality grocery stores. Through our website you can sign up and organize a group or select a group to sponsor.

After discussion in class we realize that our service may not be able to reach everyone we intend to help. We would partner with farmers markets, churches in low income areas, schools and stores to be able to put up posters directing people in our target communities to our website.

For more on our revolutionary business model see our links below:

Presentation Link: https://prezi.com/4mwwvqbglpx2/food-run/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Food-Run-1174148009280236/
Our Website: http://acrisp5.wix.com/foodrun

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

RecoverAna

Link to the proof-of-concept version of the app: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59516118/RecoverAna.zip

RecoverAna is designed to help people recover from anorexia. It does this by offering automated Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which helps a person to replace their negative thoughts with positive ones. Another feature is a meal tracker, which would allow a person to record their thoughts associated with each meal. We also included an article section, which would allow a person to read more about anorexia, and become more educated. We have a forum and a chat room, where users of the app could talk to each other, and comfort each other if they are feeling down. Finally, we put a “Call Hotline” button on the app, that, when pressed, would call a hotline for anorexia.

Since our presentation, we made a few changes to our idea. We decided to make the app only accessible through a psychologist’s prescription, instead of freely available to download, so that people would not attempt to self-medicate, and make their condition worse. We also decided to change the goal behind the meal tracker, so that it is for a psychologist to monitor the user’s progress, instead of for the user to monitor it themselves, because that could potentially cause their condition to worsen. We appreciate all of the questions and feedback, and we hope that you liked our idea.

Monday, December 7, 2015

The Buddy System

url to app; http://snappy.appypie.com/html5/the-buddy-system


Our mission is: The Buddy System was created with the mindset that everyone needs and can have a buddy even when they feel that they have no one else. Through our app, people will be able to find support whether it be when walking home alone or when needing to talk to someone who is going through similar situations.

We greatly appreciated everyone's feedback on Friday. Because of what was said we decided to add a few more features to our phone app. We have decided that it would be a good addition to have moderators and professionals onto our chat room in order to make sure it is a safe environment of support. They would be able to talk directly to someone that said anything alarming, and direct them to someone that could help. We would also have a terms and conditions page that outlined how to use the app safely.

We also know that we would like to add a feature in which there would be different app icons in order to keep the identity and nature of the app as a secret when popularity was gained. All the great features from before would still be available, but the Buddy Up feature would be the main screen.


Friday, December 4, 2015

Justin beiber, rental cars, and 2 years behind without a daddy

Taking moral issues and this semester in general has opened my doors, furthermore it has opened my mind to many more possibilities. I could go on about how I failed my last 2 exams in a course. However, currently Pandora decided to "Play Stuck in the Moment with You" by Justin Beiber and it time traveled me to an earlier day in my development. A time when my biggest worry was if I would be able to catch the Disney premiere of whatever was the newest show or episode. Well, that's an exaggeration; I'm sure you get the point.
A few years later I'm about 2 chronological years older than my graduating year classmates. That's the least of my problems. I'm without a father. 
The reason I share this candid information is not whether I'm testing consequentialism, I'm testing existentialism. I do hold that definite optimism, the belief that we define our future successes, is of utmost importance. So an issue of current, it could be argued, is the loss of the personal touch and community. That's why I decided to share my innermost thought with my moral issues class of 2015: 
Sam
Theresa
 McKenzie
Jenny 
James 
Rachel
Madison
Richard 
Efren
Leslie
Meghan
Caitlen
Ali
Selena
In addition, this great group of people is led by Dr. Johnson, arguably the trendiest and most up-to-date professor I have had.
Since we are "Stuck in the Moment with Each Other" might as well get to know one another and build community. One could argue that it would help lessen moral dilemmas. I hope we continue to have a great semester and I am glad to be able to share a great semester with you. 

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Hearts for the Hungry

The Link: 
http://jdavids1.wix.com/heartsforthehungry

The mission of Hearts for the Hungry has three pieces: 
1. To provide for those who are in need
2. To allow restaurants with excess food to redistribute
3. To donate food in a fast, effective, and technologically advanced method. 

First, we researched how hunger and food insecurity plagues Shelby county. A study finds that 204,130 people in Shelby County--including nearly 50,000 children--do not always know where they will find their next meal. According to the Mid-South Food Bank and Feeding America, 22% of the Shelby County population struggles with hunger. This is an increase of 1%, or more than 8,600 people, over the last year. 

Our website is for restaurants, shelters, and those in need. In the website, we have different features to accommodate all viewers. We also have a find us page where you can direct all questions about the food and food safety, volunteering, and the H4H revolution. 

We are Hearts for the Hungry and we are discovering happiness in thankfulness. 




Wednesday, December 2, 2015

urBAC

urBAC creates a simple and reliable way to measure your BAC. It is constituted of a bracelet and an app that work together to give your exact BAC by transdermally testing your sweat. Since our society consumes a lot of alcohol, our purpose for this app is to not only reduce drunk driving in our society but keep you aware of their physical and mental capabilities. It uses a color scale which tells you how drunk you are, ensuring that you are conscious and able to make rational decisions. Wanting to develop a community based product, the app, in conjunction with the bracelet, will automatically notify your friends in the group preselected in order to let them know you may need help to find a safe environment. This feature keeps you accountable to both yourself and others. Although urBAC can not stop you from driving under the influence, we wanted to offer an option to alert you and your friends about the state you are in.
Since Monday, we made some adjustments off the ideas discussed in class. The main change is the color system. We agreed with the problem of designating yellow for the illegal limit of 0.08% BAC, so we changed it to red and made the BAC levels after 0.08 into into a purple. Another suggestion we included was the idea of using GPS. We enabled in the setting a feature capable of tracking you that would allow your friends to find you when they're needed. The last piece of advice we incorporated was the situation of having your BAC recorded as a history. In the end, we decided to create an option of turning this off or on in the settings. Allowing people to decide how they want urBAC to assist them became a major focus, and we hope you enjoy our idea.
Link: