Battling social distancing? Bear with Life app is here
August 11, 2020
Why
The reason why we started the project
Have you already thought about what is causing you the biggest issue in times of isolation? Do you also find social distancing difficult these days? During the last week of March 2020, the Hack the Crisis Hackathon movement appeared in our internal channels at Vacuumlabs and started a conversation about whether we could contribute to the event in any way.
Insight and motivation
The purpose of our first conference call was to find an idea that provides an added value in the current epidemic situation, something we can all be enthusiastic about. Among the listed possibilities we saw an eye-catching description explaining the negative effects of physical distancing. An interesting study claimed, that‘Being socially isolated is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.’ –American Psychological AssociationWhen we started to talk about this statement, more and more personal stories came up about depression, isolated family members and friends, and changing good daily routines, such as leaving healthy eating habits behind due to the pandemic. At that very moment, I think all of us felt like this was the right path to take.
The idea – Bear with Life
The core idea was about creating an application, where you can invite the people of your tribe. This social platform provides you a list of challenges to take and if you accept them, you will have them under ‘My challenges’ to complete. Once the required act is completed, you can upload a photo as a proof and hit ‘Challenge completed’. After completion, the app is asking about your mood and also offers a field to record how you felt. Writing down your thoughts or ‘journaling’ helps you to better understand your mental state and gain control over your emotions.
- Change can be stressful no matter what causes it. Music has the power to help overcome the discomfort. Make a positive playlist and share it with others, encouraging them to keep going.
- Give yourself a break, and don’t check the news until you go to sleep. Don’t look at the statistics, new treatments, or predictions today to remember how the world looked like before.
- When was the last time you spoke to your best friend from high school? Message them, and set up a call to find out how much has changed in their life in the meantime.
- It is not the same when you are at home and not in the gym. However, there are plenty of exercises you can do right here, right now – do some pushups, try a plank challenge, or find a guided video on Youtube.
How
The Team
Our team originally consisted of people who work with PR, marketing and business development, a UI/UX specialist with skills in project management, frontend developers, backend developers and after our first meeting, we also invited an external psychologist to join us.
UI/UX
One of the first steps was creating our brand guide. We agreed on our name ‘Bear with Life’, we picked out the fonts to use and also decided on the colors of our application. Besides, we had a clear idea of the logo, we wanted something bear-related with a heart shape, possibly referring to the social distance we have to keep these days.
Key technologies we used
Our tech stack includes the followings:- React Native via Expo,
- TypeScript,
- Hasura using GraphQL as a backend and database solution.
Easy Landing Page Setup
Our first landing page was created on the platform Strikingly. This website editor allows you to put something together very quickly by using a customizable template. We included content about the planned application and a description of our mission.
The final presentation
We put together the final presentation in Google Slides. Csongor Biás did a presentation in Hungarian using the recording function of Zoom, we sent the video to the Hungarian jury. Moreover, Pavol Gurican did a live stream pitch presentation on the Slovakian side, and our social project won second place: