[Mentor #18] Robin Loh

Started by Anand Ramchand
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Anand Ramchand

For more information about Robin, please see: https://bit.ly/30esJp9 (scroll to slide 22)

If you would like Robin to be your mentor, please add a reply below, with the following details:

  1. Your team members' names:
  2. Your team name:
  3. URL of your Liftoff slide:
  4. URL of your Liftoff video:
  5. Anything you'd like the mentor to know:
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Wang Xueting

  1. Team member’s names: Tsai Hsiao-Han, Wang Xueting
  2. Team name: 1952
  3. Slide URL: https://i.ibb.co/6vX2rFp/Ignition-Presentation.jpg
  4. Video URL: 38:18 - 39:38

Hi Mr Loh,
As mentioned above, we are planning to develop a mobile app to encourage sustainable lifestyle among users. The features include basic navigation, tracking user actions, viewing collective results and relevant knowledge, and sharing on social platforms.

We would like to seek some guidance regarding one or more of the following topics:

  • Front-end: iOS app development, UI/UX
  • Back-end: data visualisation, database management (cloud), game development (for engaging and interactive design)

We would also appreciate it if you could kindly provide suggestions and advice for other areas of development related to our project. Thank you very much.

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Muhammad Khairul Azman

Member 1: Muhammad Khairul Azman
Member 2: Sahil S/O Sanjeev Gathani

Team Name: VuKoh

Liftoff Slide: https://i.ibb.co/KDPmT5v/Orbital-Poster.png

Video url (17:25 - 18:20):

App Name: Edible (Android)

Problem:
As someone with dietary restrictions (vegetarian/ allergies), it is tough to discern immediately whether one can eat a certain food product based on the packaging/ ingredient list alone due to coded food additives (E260 etc). Moreover, health-conscious users might want to find out more details about additives at-a-glance rather than individually figuring out what each coded additive stands for and its relevant details.

Solution/What the app does:
We plan to create an app where a user is able to find out whether a food product meets their dietary restrictions just by taking a photo of the ingredient list. Should it not meet their restrictions, the list of problematic ingredients will be printed out.

Core Features:
Maintain a database of common food ingredients in packaged food as well as coded additives that users can search for in the app
Immediately discern whether the food item meets your dietary restrictions by taking a photo of the ingredients list

Potential Extensions:
Auto-translation of ingredients of food products with packaging in a foreign language so that we can carry out Core Feature 2 for imported products
iOS release
Nutritional checker and tracking
Problem: Doesn’t track everything eg. fresh food so may not have much use
Storing user data (Search history/trends)
If a product does not meet dietary restrictions, suggest similar products

Implementation:
Build a database of commonly coded food additives
Manually input from common databases, manual authentication and checking
Build the photo parsing system (main app)
Build a system to automatically add unknown ingredients not in database
Doable? How to do - Automatically google unknown ingredient and search links and parse info and add? How to ensure reliable/authentic?
Add extensions
Technical details: Flutter for frontend, firebase for backend

What we need help with:
A professional’s opinion on our ideation: Is our solution optimal for solving the issue at hand, is there any other feature we should consider, something we are overlooking?
Roadmapping: Is the path we laid out feasible? Is our timeline appropriate? Should we be prioritising something else?
Dividing the work: Is it advisable to have one person handle the front-end and one person handle the back-end? We want to maximise our learning while also ensuring we have a good development plan in place.
Technical guidance where possible (Although we realise most of this will be self-learning): Database, storage and parsing.

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Liu Zechu

Member 1: Ong Yan Chun
Member 2: Liu Zechu

Team Name: xyz

URL of Liftoff video:

=PLLSECIsYjSIzOtS9jlGEIr77wffz0tRjU&index=49&t=0s

URL of Liftoff poster: https://i.ibb.co/5rLxygb/first-pitch-130519.jpg

Problem:
People who read text materials cannot conveniently, efficiently, and effectively learn content knowledge from the materials.

Significance:

  1. Reading text is a major way of learning, especially for subjects that require a lot of content knowledge.
  2. There is such a treasure trove of text materials out there. It is so easy to download free learning materials (e.g. textbooks, articles, research papers) on the internet, but not as easy to make full use of that material. We want to make full use of this potential.
  3. Not restricted to students alone, for example learning a new language requires a lot of memorisation of vocabulary, going into a new field, etc.

Problems with current solutions:

  1. Reading and re-reading notes: passive and ineffective
  2. Making physical flashcards: takes too much time, can’t be done on the go, can’t be reviewed on the go. We asked someone who creates physical flashcards for revision, and they said that the main problem is that they cannot review the cards on the go.
  3. Flashcard making apps like Anki: Although Anki is successful and has many many features, the cards can’t be done on the go and disrupt the flow of reading. We interviewed a dedicated user of Anki. He has made 27000 cards and reviews 1500 cards minimum a day. He said that he wanted to make cards while he was reading his textbooks instead of having to switch between multiple apps. He also wished to create cards on his phone instead of only on his laptop, so that he could make and review cards during transit.

Goal:
To make learning content knowledge from text materials convenient, efficient and effective.

Convenient = Accessible from your phone, portable, on-the-go
Efficient = Want to make cards quickly, review cards quickly
Effective = Consistent. Good for memory retention

Our solution:
Phone app. (Primarily android)
Core features:

  1. While reading through a PDF document, the user can highlight a sentence/phrase in the PDF, then it’s automatically made into a flashcard. And then the user can write a question to prompt them to answer the highlighted parts.
  2. User will be prompted to answer questions at regular intervals based on the Leitner system of spaced repetition.
  3. After reviewing a card, you may opt to return to the part of PDF where you made the card.
    Extension features:
  4. Can make user-defined cards too.
  5. Can use OCR to make notes.
  6. Visual representation of the flashcards stored. So I can see how many I’ve done, various stats etc.
  7. After you make a card, it is consolidated into your box.
  8. Can define multiple shoeboxes (categories to store the cards) and what goes into the boxes.
  9. Some sort of gamified score system: how many cards I have graduated from, my streak (current, longest), see statistics of my own progress.
  10. Make the app not just limited to PDF, but also other file types such as websites, images etc.

Reach - people who want to learn from text materials (esp. students studying content heavy subjects, people entering into a new field, picking up a new skill)
Impact - depends. An average student studying a content heavy subject will be affected very often - every day they learn something new as their learning is broken down into feasible steps
Confidence - scientific evidence from Ebbinghaus that spaced repetition works. And we have conducted interviews on our target audience and understood how they learn and interact with text materials.
Effort - a lot.

What we need help with:

  1. Integration of PDF into our app
  2. UX design - how to make this flashcard making process as smooth, efficient, and fun as possible
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Loh Zi Bin Robin

Dear friends,

Thank you for reaching out to me. All the project ideas here are great. I wished that I could take in all of you for mentorship.
However, due to my hectic schedules ahead, I can only take a maximum of 2 teams this time.

Hence, I will be the mentor for the first 2 teams that reached out to me (i.e. Team1782, YouDeserveThis).

I sincerely apologise to the remaining teams for not being able to become your mentor. Even though that's the case, I welcome all of you to reach out to me anytime! :)

Thank you and all the best for your projects!

Regards,
Robin (replying from Osaka, Japan)

@Dr. Anand - Kindly add Team1782, YouDeserveThis under my mentorship. Thank you.

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Qiu Jing Ying

  1. Team members: Charmaine Koh & Qiu Jing Ying
  2. Team Name: Katz
  3. Liftoff slide: https://i.ibb.co/H4v4Jw5/Katz.jpg
  4. Liftoff video:

Project:
We plan to design a game, SoCiety, set in the campus of SoC in order to create a unique and fun way to introduce and integrate freshmen into SoC. We will be using Unity to design the environment of the game and we would like to seek some guidance regarding the backend developments for the game such as a leaderboard and multiplayer functionalities.