Meet the Outbound App!

 This year, through joining the National Science Competition club at my school, I am excited to be participating in my first ever science competition! The Maryland MESA competition created by Johns Hopkins University, challenged teams of students to create a mobile app that addresses a societal health issue. Going into this, I knew that I wanted to somehow incorporate environmental aspects into the app and paired up with other students who did too! And just like that, the Outbound team was formed! 

As we researched possible health issues to base our app on, we came across a study conducted by DJ Case and Associates, in conjunction with wildlife and park agencies that discovered that 56% of American adults spend less than 5 hours outside each week, primarily due to the increase in mobile device usage. I thought, why not utilize these mobile devices to encourage people to head outside!

You may be thinking, why is this such a significant issue? Well, as nearly any doctor would tell you, spending time outdoors is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. Spending time outdoors promotes physical activity, which comes with a wide range of benefits, such as reducing the risk of obesity, (the rate of obesity in the US has climbed to a record high 42.2%), high blood pressure, weak bones and muscles, cardiovascular disease, and even certain cancers! 

In addition to some of the physical health benefits, spending more time outside has been linked to positive mental health. Research has shown that being outdoors, especially when surrounded by nature, contributes to reducing the risk of depression and anxiety symptoms.

Just the outside world itself has benefits too. An example of this is sunlight activating Vitamin D in the body, which is necessary to keep bones, teeth, and muscles healthy. Exposure to sunlight can also contribute to positive mental health; a study from the University of Queensland, Australia, published in 2016 found that 30 minutes or more of sunlight a day can reduce depression prevalence up to 7%.

In the end we created Outbound, a simple app that allows users to find the optimal time and weather conditions for them to "get out of the home and go roam!" As high school students, we understood that it can be difficult to plan outdoor activity into a busy day, especially with constantly fluctuating weather forecasts. Outbound helps resolve this, by making it quick and easy for people to find the best time to get out and stay active, according to their own preferences! The app sends encouraging notifications and provides customized weather reports, allowing the optimal time to be found with a single glance. 



The Outbound app's interface is designed in a simple, universally understandable, and user-friendly way. To view the page that they would like, the user can select down near the bottom of the screen or swipe to the desired page. The user can select different options by checking boxes and using a sliding bar on the preferences page to indicate their weather preferences. The app algorithm takes these preferences into account before sending the user a notification. By utilizing a graph feature on the recommendations page, weather data presents itself in an easily digestible, understandable, and visually appealing way. The notifications page displays a large calendar on which the user can choose dates on which they wish to be notified by the app. Finally, the forum page is straightforward to use; the user types in a message and clicks the post icon for other users to see it.

Overall, the Outbound interface was designed in such a way for it to be able to be widely used by practically anyone. To test the app's design and functionality, we ran it on an actual phone and interacted with it as a typical user would to best simulate the app experience. It worked great and we can wait to submit our app to the MESA competition!

 




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