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“Fitness with Sugar the Dog”

Finalist: Most Entertaining
Creators: Youssef, Richard, Ryan, Mirriam, and Brendan
Middle School Students from Mouse Design League (DIIT) @ IS 7 Elias Bernstein
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About this Project:

Our school is part of the NYC Department of Education's Comfort Dog Program. We rescued Sugar about five years ago and she has helped our school community tremendously. Sugar, the main character (dog) in our app will help students get fit in mind, body and spirit. Take a look at our slide deck to watch our design process in action.

Project Media

Slides

Video

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Community Feedback:

👾 
Fun
🚀 
Innovative
🌎 
Helpful
🌈 
Great Design
💡 
Makes Me Think

Feedback from the Judges:

Alexa Curtis
👏 Executive Director, Experience Design at Verizon — Emoti-Con Judge
Excellent presentation and compelling data that helps showcase the opportunity. The concept is also incredibly fun. I love that it bridges the digital and physical worlds, inviting the school community into the movement of youth fitness in a deeper way! The prototype the team created, as well as the clear presentation, really helped bring the concept to life in a tangible (and enjoyable) way! It looks like the team had fun making this together, and that joy comes through in the final presentation!

Abhishek Sen
👏 Lead Software Engineer at ADP — Emoti-Con Judge
This is an amazing idea. I love how you've gamified the fitness and wellness challenge in such a unique and interesting way :). I also thought your presentation of the slides was really well done and made everything super easy to understand!!

Michael Carroll
👏 Head of Product at Baton Technologies — Emoti-Con Judge
Your app made me think of my class dog when I grew up, Ziggy. He was a big source of positivity and I still keep in contact with friends from then today! I really appreciate you saw your classroom dog and dug into the root causes of the benefits of having a pup around every day. You thought about a lot of positive consequences clearly and communicated them clearly!

PS please give Sugar a pet from me!

Pablo Smith
👏 Creative Director at Godling Studio — Emoti-Con Judge
Wow! The pitch had a great storytelling component (starting with the problem and using statistics, continuing with an emotional plea, and then the app idea as a logical solution), and the idea of gamifying fitness by abstracting your points to the dog is a fantastic idea as well. It seems like you found a core thing (Sugar) that everyone can identify with and added a game aspect to make it more fun (counting homework for points is great too!), which should increase usage of the app. Maybe a next version of the app could have a public Sugar gallery where people could have their customized Sugar dogs interact with one another?

Great job!

Feedback from the Community:

👏 a Parent from Staten Island, NY
I love this idea!
It’s so important for kids to stay physically and mentally healthy. Making sugar the dog inspire them was a great idea. I especially love how you can buy stuff w points to dress the dog. I think this is so appealing to kids your age!
👏 a Parent from Staten Island
Excellent idea and concept! Combining physical and mental well-being in a format today’s kids are comfortable and familiar with sounds like a winning formula. Your video highlights the many factors the team considered in order to make this a valuable tool. Great work and best of luck!
👏 a Parent
What a creative idea -- making it fun and healthy at the same time. And something that is needed ... as your stats show. A healthier country is a better country -- well done -- Uncle G
👏 a Teacher from Staten Island , NY
Excellent concept and design proposal! I love how your team addressed mental and physical well being in a format that is fun and entertaining. Including your school’s comfort dog was a fantastic addition! I think people using this app will enjoy earning points to use in the shop and be encouraged to utilize the app more often. Your attention to details is evident in your presentation- best of luck!
👏 a High School Student
This is such a fun idea! I love the incorporation of a cute animal to help motivate kids to focus on their physical and mental health!- good job boys!
👏 a Teacher from Staten Island
Excellent concept! So important
Luke 👏 a Middle School Student from Staten Island
This is motivating!
👏 a Teacher from School in NJ
Sitting is the new smoking — I love an app that promotes fitness!!
Adrienne Armetta 👏 a Teacher from Staten Island
What an innovative idea!! Fitness and health is so important. This is definitely an idea that would benefit all. 😊
👏 a Teacher
Great idea 👏👏👏
👏 a Community Member from Barnegat NJ
Excellent idea to get our youth interested in fitness.
A dog mommy 👏 a Community Member from NJ
As a dog mom, they do get you up and out! The app is a genius idea because it helps kids not only stay active but also appreciate our fourlegged friends who also need support! The fact that you added a great addition to buying items to earn points, this is perfect to link up to a dog site like chewy. They would love this idea. Pitch them!
This team rocks!
👏 a Parent
This is such a helpful app idea!
malin 👏 a Middle School Student from Staten Island, New York
You guys did so great on this project i love your idea. a nice motivational app to get you out of bed and into work. nice job 😎
Dawn 👏 a Teacher from Staten Island
WOW! Such a creative way to help people stay mentally, emotionally, and physically fit.
👏 a Teacher from P. S. 42
Love the points system! Great way to motivate your audience!
Also, everyone spoke so clearly on the video; it was engaging and easy to understand!
Great job!
Mrs. Ferrante 👏 a Teacher from 31R007 Staten Island
What a fantastic idea! Sugar is so honored to have been made a part of your wonderful project. Good luck!!! Thank you!!!
Donna (paraprofessional in Middle School) 👏 a Community Member from staten island
I like that it is on video and slides and that anyone can relate to it.
Ms. Sohmer 👏 a Teacher from Staten Island, NY
This is such an awesome idea! Great work!
Anthony 👏 a Middle School Student from Staten Island, Student at I.S.7
Love this idea, would love to see this app blow up! Would love to be apart of this since I am very profesional with Java, Python, and other codes! Mind if I pitch some ideas?
charles 👏 a Teacher from nyc
young ideas that give us hope for the future
Viv 👏 a Middle School Student from NY
This is a cool project.
Good job 👍 👍👍
Jaime R. 👏 a Teacher from Staten Island
I love this app! What a wonderful idea!
cole 👏 a Middle School Student
Cool
Gabbie M. 👏 a Middle School Student from is7
I really like the idea of the app, it great !
👏 a Teacher
Great idea!
Ms Crowe 👏 a Teacher
I love this idea! I am fortunate enough to walk Sugar every Friday and love that she gets me motivated!

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