Storytelling is an intrinsic part of human nature. It is how we communicate; pass down traditions, morals, history, our individual pasts, our present thoughts, and future hopes. Our project seeks to discover how much of the art of storytelling has been lost due to social media and how that can affect self-image in Internet users. Research has shown there are different types of user experiences based on the level of connectedness people feel with others online. Positive storytelling experiences can be found on websites that create support systems where users receive encouragement from others. Negative experiences generally center on social media sites that enable people to be self-centered, often causing other users to feel lonely, alienated, and envious. Our desire for this project is to help others understand we must make conscious efforts to create support systems for ourselves and others. Storytelling cannot exist in a vacuum.

The So-So app is the ultimate night out companion! We tackle the problem of how to easily keep track of friends when out in the city so that everyone is safe and happy. With features like safety zones, friend tracking, and SOS alerts it conveniently fits the needs of anyone’s night out. Initial setup of the app includes choosing your preferred safety settings and connecting with your contacts. When heading out for the night you invite your group and start “Night Out Mode”. Once started, So-So tracks everyone in you group for the night, and applies your preferred safety features until the “Night Out Mode” times out. There is no other app that functions quite like So-So. It’s what the So-So Sober you would want!

This Library Life Gabbie Barnes, Residential MLIS Rebecca Fronczak, Online MLIS Erin Vonnahme, Residential MLIS Librarians love to share. Despite our love for sharing ideas among ourselves and our patrons, there’s no single, independent repository available to find library programming across the country. Until now. This Library Life (TLL) is an interactive website where library professionals can share ideas, encouraging users to discover diverse library services and initiatives happening across the country. We’ve done a lot of “behind the scenes” work for this online tool, developing a well-thought out structure and metadata schema which will allow users to navigate TLL with ease. These considerations will make future growth and more customization possible. In short, we’re presenting a digital platform that aggregates and visualizes just how dynamic, creative, and vital libraries are to their communities. Just like the library itself, This Library Life is an environment that encourages engagement, interaction, and community growth, one story at a time.

At UW, commuters have a tough time trying to find parking at campus parking lots & garages and pay for higher parking rates. Drivers get stuck in redirect loops and often have difficulty coordinating carpools. Our solution to this issue is a mobile application called “Parking Hero”. Our application provides commuters with information about which parking lots are full and which aren’t ahead of time so they can head straight to an open lot from the start, saving time and stress. It also allows them to connect with other commuters to coordinate carpooling to get the cheaper carpooling rate. This application will help decrease the congestion of UW parking lots and garages and improve the amount of carpoolers to UW campus.

Food Detective is a mobile application that empowers those with dietary restrictions to understand what is in their food. The main feature is a barcode scanner that matches a user’s dietary needs against the contents of a product. This will allow users quickly and easily answer one question: “Can I consume this product?” This is the single most important question for anyone living with a restriction. By enabling them to quickly get this answer, we increase their chances of eating within their guide lines and improving their quality of life. Our application is available on both Android and iOS, both applications implement the core scanning functionality, a sharing and saving system so that users can keep track of products they like, and alert their friends about potential products they may want to buy. Through this simple system, we hope to help those with special diets live a healthy and productive life.

A large aspect of creating music is collaborating with others. Most musical collaborations occur within physical proximity to each other because few tools allow for collaboration from afar. Git Music allows for musical collaboration to take place online. Specifically, we created an easy to use website that people use to discover and download others’ musical projects. Our service provides people with the ability to browse, upload, and download musical projects. Each song also contains an informational visual that displays its download and upload history linked to each artist. We gauged our success by surveying users to find the ease of use and overall satisfaction with the website. By developing a platform for people to download and upload their musical projects, we provide an avenue for artists to easily collaborate their music together.

Project Leto consists of an augmented reality mobile app, ARtemis, and a collaborative virtual web environment, Apollo. With the amount of people attending networking events it is often difficult to make meaningful and lasting connections. ARtemis allows for instant information and social connections by providing virtual badges with relevant information viewable through AR technology. Apollo provides a platform for project management and remote collaboration, which is often hindered by the diverse amount of tools in different locations. It integrates and organizes the current resources available to users (Github, Google Drive, Lucidchart, etc.) into a single workspace that clearly outlines the project. Together they embody Leto’s goal of supporting social and professional networking, communication, and collaboration. Success is gauged by the time saved in the communication process with ARtemis and the actual workflow with Apollo. Together, ARtemis and Apollo build an ecosystem where people are encouraged to collaborate and solve problems.

Our project addresses the lack of unified platforms between nightclubs who want to advertise events and customers who want to search for nightclub event information in a easy way. Currently, nightclubs either advertise events on their own websites, or create Facebook events. Therefore, if a customer wants to look for a nightclub event, he will have to manually search through many sites. To address this problem, we designed a mobile application with two interfaces that allows nightclubs to advertise their events so customers can find the information in the same platform effectively in a timely manner. We gauge success by comparing the speed of customers in finding information using this mobile application. Our solution enables nightclubs and customers to exchange information more efficiently in their mobile phones.

OpenDoors is a readers’ advisory program aimed at middle- and high-school-aged readers. Our goal was to adapt librarian Nancy Pearl’s concept of the “four doorways” of adult readers’ advisory (plot, setting, character, and language) for use with YA works. Working with St. Thomas School, our team created an informational poster, bookmarks, and a Tumblr blog. Students are provided with a number of titles as a starting point and encouraged to explore further and to share their own discoveries via Tumblr. For some readers, these materials may get them thinking about why they enjoy the books they do and encourage them to seek out more diverse reading materials; others may use the categories simply as a field of suggested titles to draw from. In either case, they will be making new finds and actively considering what they liked about the books and why.

Managing pets can take a great amount of work and time. It involves repetitive tasks and a lot of learning. This can especially be challenging for serious pet owners who want to provide the best care for their pets while going through their own busy lives. To address this challenge, we’re developing Pet Files, which allows pet owners to stay more organized and better manage their pets, individually or together with others. With this mobile app, pet owners are able to keep detailed information of their pets, set up routines, and share the same information with housemates and/or caretakers, all in one place. Now, pet owners are more able to effectively manage and keep up with their pets’ needs anywhere, anytime.