Hack the North 2022, Voice Journal for Mental Health | 2nd Place for Best Use of Co:here
Mental health issues is becoming a more prevalent issue each year. Nearly one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness, but less than 20% of people actually seek mental health treatment. Furthermore, 47% of Americans believe that seeking therapy is a sign of weakness. Our goal with journal4me is to provide an outlet for people to speak their thoughts; to let it all out.
journal4me is a journaling app that removes the tediousness of typing out your thoughts. It is well known that journaling can improve one's mental health, but many stray away from the act, intimidated by the monotonous writing involved with jotting down your feelings. With journal4me, all you need to do is speak! The app automatically processes your words and jots them down for you, so that you can rant about your day effortlessly without having to pause and think about how to spell a word or structure a sentence. At the end of your recording, the app even ranks your mood based on what was depicted from your rant using sentiment analysis!
journal4me was built with the following tools and languages:
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- React
- FastAPI
- Co:here
- AssemblyAI
- MongoDB
In terms of front-end, we ran into a few slight hiccups with using React, such as fixing images and dealing with positioning, but ultimately solved them as we moved forward. For back-end, we used Python and FastAPI as the back-end framework, which led us to use a database we were not too comfortable with (MongoDB Atlas). Configuring AssemblyAI was also a tough API to get used to, but we managed to figure it out in the end.
For many of us it was our first times working in a group environment at a hackathon and we are all proud of what we were able to build in such a short amount of time. Other accomplishments include:
- Learning the ins and outs of React
- Working with and handling APIs
- Putting the whole application together; ultimately connecting the front-end with the back-end
Throughout Hack the North 2022, we were all able to improve our skills as full stack web developers. From refreshing our React knowledge to handling server-side requests and updates, we all definitely finished Hack the North 2022 with newfound skills and abilities.
To level up journal4me, we could improve the UI to further better the user's journaling experience. Some examples include updating the text as the user speaks, adding a mood board, creating a larger 'emotion rating scale'; there are many improvements that we are considering of making in the future.