“New Generation”
Creators: Nicole, Jacob, Margaret, and Lawrence
High School Students from Mouse Design League (DIIT) @ New Dorp High School
About this Project:
Our app's goal is to persuade students to find computer science exciting since we're in a time period where everything and everyone is virtual. Additionally, we hope that our app doesn't seem like a chore and we hope to make our users' computer science education fun!
For our project, we need to get the individual coding done. To go into specifics, our group wants to implement an AI in order to help students and learners with their questions and topics in computer science they might not understand.
We, at first, wanted to focus on a medical app, but decided to focus on a topic that affected us more personally: computer science. Although we wanted to take on more, we decided to focus on beginners and people who really want to get into the topic. We just saw a lot of our classmates and pairs struggling and having difficulty with a topic that is so essential to modern-day life, thus spurring us to try to teach basic topics in a way anyone could understand.
Once our project is completely build and polished, we plan to have a simple, understandable app where students and learners alike can go and learn the basics of computer science through fun and educational games and a supportive, strong community We’d also have an AI set up, where students struggling with certain topics can ask any question or problem.
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More About this Project
The link provided shows a demo of our app.
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Feedback from the Judges:
👏 Director of Learning at Killer Snails — Emoti-Con Judge
Thanks so much for sharing your ideas, team! Your deck shows real talent for visual design, pacing, and a skill for using Canva! I loved hearing about your perspective on the challenges students face while learning computer science, and the statistics, community survey, and personal observations you made were really effective together to support your strategy. Your choices about what the app should include made total sense. Using a networking feature and awards to encourage participants are really smart choices. I would have loved a walkthrough of an example of how a user would start the New Generation experience, and how they would encounter & use these different features, just so I could picture everything more clearly. I also loved that you were thinking about how to take the project further with AI-generated levels and games. One of the most interesting things about your project is that you focus on features that connect *people* to each other in order to learn computer science. If you want to take this idea further, you might do some research into "project-based learning" and the best techniques for learning to code. Strategies like "pair programming" that have proven to be effective could work really well with your idea. Great job!
👏 Manager, Design League & Volunteers at Mouse — Emoti-Con Judge
Fantastic job Nicole, Jacob, Margaret, and Lawrence!
I love your app idea! This would definitely be a great app to help new CS learners have access to interactive educational games and a space to build community with other new learners.
You all did a wonderful job with your pith presentation and slides. Your design process was very detailed and clear. The competitive analysis, iterations, and synthesizing of your interviews were amazing! I loved the graphics, colors, and app screenshots. You used great marketing tools to present your app idea and why people should use it.
Awesome work!
I love your app idea! This would definitely be a great app to help new CS learners have access to interactive educational games and a space to build community with other new learners.
You all did a wonderful job with your pith presentation and slides. Your design process was very detailed and clear. The competitive analysis, iterations, and synthesizing of your interviews were amazing! I loved the graphics, colors, and app screenshots. You used great marketing tools to present your app idea and why people should use it.
Awesome work!
👏 IT Infrastructure Support at ArcherPoint — Emoti-Con Judge
The biggest challenge that most of us face who are new to Computer Science is "Where do I start?".
I think a place where you can connect with other people and potentially even learn in a group setting is a real key to success for anyone who would want to start out in the field (adult or not!). I love that you are also thinking towards the future and leveraging AI to help build out content and keep things fresh and new for your users. I think this could also be a very useful tool for CS teachers to encourage students and even use projects for grading purposes.
I loved the use of CSS and //comments as a design aspect in the presentation. For those who understand it, it was like a nice easter egg about how your app and "end" </difficult> and </tedious> things about CS.
Awesome work!
I think a place where you can connect with other people and potentially even learn in a group setting is a real key to success for anyone who would want to start out in the field (adult or not!). I love that you are also thinking towards the future and leveraging AI to help build out content and keep things fresh and new for your users. I think this could also be a very useful tool for CS teachers to encourage students and even use projects for grading purposes.
I loved the use of CSS and //comments as a design aspect in the presentation. For those who understand it, it was like a nice easter egg about how your app and "end" </difficult> and </tedious> things about CS.
Awesome work!
👏 Software Engineering Manager at Google — Emoti-Con Judge
As a computer scientist I'm really happy that you chose to take on the problem of making computer science easier to learn and more accessible. You seem to be taking an approach of gamifying the learning process, which is a great way to keep users engaged.
The idea of making use of AI to help learners solve a problem is a nice one. One of my good friends from graduate school, Neil Heffernan, developed an AI-based math tutor that helps students learn algebra (https://new.assistments.org/), and you could apply a similar approach to learning computer science.
You could also imagine the app being able to connect people together. For example, if you got stuck on a problem and eventually were able to figure it out, then the app could connect someone else who is stuck on the same problem with you so that you can help them through it.
Anyway, there's tons of potential in your idea.
The idea of making use of AI to help learners solve a problem is a nice one. One of my good friends from graduate school, Neil Heffernan, developed an AI-based math tutor that helps students learn algebra (https://new.assistments.org/), and you could apply a similar approach to learning computer science.
You could also imagine the app being able to connect people together. For example, if you got stuck on a problem and eventually were able to figure it out, then the app could connect someone else who is stuck on the same problem with you so that you can help them through it.
Anyway, there's tons of potential in your idea.
👏 Teaching Artist at Pockets Change — Emoti-Con Judge
This is fun! Making learning fun and interactive is key to keeping learning happening and your project is entirely grounded in this. I love that you are not just creating a playful way for folks to learn basic CS concepts but also creating a place for community and support; and the app itself gives supportive "you did it" prompts which is so encouraging! It was helpful to see the options for light and dark mode for all of your screens and I found them easy to read in both modes, great design work there.
As someone who is fairly ignorant to CS and to playing games in the digital space, I would love to be able to play one of the games, or get a walk through to understand how they work.
Great job overall, I hope you had fun developing this!
As someone who is fairly ignorant to CS and to playing games in the digital space, I would love to be able to play one of the games, or get a walk through to understand how they work.
Great job overall, I hope you had fun developing this!
👏 Program Manager at Meta — Emoti-Con Judge
This is a fantastic idea! As you highlighted, basic computer science skills are increasingly becoming a part of our day-to-day lives and there is immense opportunity for a product like this to gain traction. I especially like your focus on user friendliness and gamifying the skills development to make it accessible to a wider audience. I can imagine this product taking off and doing very well with a wide range of individuals ranging from students to professionals seeking to build their technical skills!
I also love the design and enjoyed going through the demo. Great job!
I also love the design and enjoyed going through the demo. Great job!
Feedback from the Community:
Marisa 👏 a Technology Professional from Manhattan
Nicole, Jacob, Margaret, and Lawrence - I love this project, your idea and your great design work. Congrats!
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