SheHACKS 2020

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us are distraught at home, wondering how to utilize what feels like the endless amounts of time we have on our hands... Originally, I was meant to participate in sheHACKS 2020 hosted by Girls In Tech UWCSEA Dover at the Google office in Singapore. Instead, we heald an international conference online supported by Slack, and let's just say it wasn't a letdown. Not only was it engaging, but we were also delivered all the aspects that you would expect to receive at a physical event. Needless to say, I was satisfied with the event and had lots of fun. I met new people, worked with them, watched how people used to code and what they did with it.

This year, our topic was sustainability amidst the situation at hand. My teammates and I decided that we would create something to do with the 6 R's: Reinvent/rethink, refuse, reduce, reuse/repair, recycle, and replace/rebuy. This is because it is easy to remember, but also easy to forget, and should be renforced from a young age. In the end, my team and I decided to create a game that captures the use of the 6R's and makes it entertaining. To create this we used python code and converted it to scratch code which creates a simple game that is easy to use and navigate.

Here is some sample python code that we used:

At the conference, they gave us a clear structure to construct our ideas and plan it out in a two-day span in order to have a tangible product for the judges.

They also gave us some key points to think about and evaluate:

- The problem we are addressing

- The solution to the problem

- Our future plans for the app/game/website

- How polished our presentation is

- What we could do to improve

- How it relates to our life right now

- Expansion methods for our app/game/website

For our future plans, my team and I decided that we would make more complicated levels,

Expand market to teens and adults, endorse education, place ads in the game to make money, and use those profits to towards organizations that promote sustainability. Some of our ideas for expansion included more mature consequences, everyday life scenarios which aren’t as easy for younger people to understand, possibly making it online with adults playing together, removing some stigma around adults playing games, and incorporating rewards/ points into different levels, as well as expanding the app globally. It was also in our intentions to enable users to donate (hence the adult audience), as well as allowing users to work together to create new ideas and integrating an app called "LoveHateWaste". This app essentially allows you to input leftovers that you have in your household, and create a delicious meal out of it.

At the end of the two-day competition, I was quite happy with the outcome, as well as the new people I had met. My team and I won the "Creativity Award" in the U18 category, so needless to say we were all quite thrilled.