Cultured Cooking Review

            The cultured cooking project was great! I absolutely loved the food they brought to sample and thought it was a good way to introduce people to a new more culturized way of cooking. I thought of it as an opportunity to tasting all the delicious food you might see on a cooking show, tourist show, or even on social media. It could also help bring people out of their shell by getting them to try new things. They’re presentation, power point, and website was well organized and there was only one concern as to how the cost would supposedly cover 4 boxes of food. Other than that, it was a good idea of theirs as well for them to deliver some of their food boxes to homeless shelters/food kitchens so none of the food would go to waste. In addition, I liked their promotion that they offered in which a family would buy one box and they would give a low income family a box of food as well! 

Nirvana Review

The third group caught my attention with their focus on the mental health awareness of people. Not many people truly understand a person with mental health issues and how they cope with it. My sister has anxiety and I didn’t quite know how she actually felt about things and why she acted the way she did because to me she was being dramatic all the time or overreacting to little things. Thanks to some research I’ve learned how to help her deal with it. I felt like Nirvana was a really good project to help give people an insight as to how people live with mental illnesses.

             I felt like the whole group was good at doing their job even if they didn’t get to meet together. The project was very well organized, and it had lots of funny memes. There was too much information on their slides and they did handle criticism very well. 

KeCa review

I really liked the project KeepCalm or KeCa for short. It was really original and overall a well presented project from start to finish. The presentation begins with an introduction of what anxiety really is and lists many different types of it. They make sure to place a distinction between everyday anxiety that I am sure many people have and an actual anxiety disorder that must be diagnosed by a professional. They also explain the difference between introverts and extroverts. I think it was interesting that people who are extroverted can also experience anxiety and have anxiety disorders. I guess, like most people, I assumed that people with anxiety disorders are usually introverted. They go on to elaborate on some of the symptoms of anxiety and even include a bit of history about anxiety disorders. I found it surprising that anxiety disorders were not really recognized until the 80's and it is just recently that people are becoming more aware of anxiety disorders and how to properly treat them which is where this app comes through.

KeCa is a self help app that helps people manage their social anxiety by accomplishing small tasks and building on them. Their mission statement "Fortify not fix" really fits well with their project because they are trying to make people stronger not just fix them as if they are broken. The app has several features that I really liked and I think would really help a person with social anxiety. The first feature mentioned was "My journal" which allows the user to write about their day and stores it on the app. Another feature is the "Chill out mix" which includes pre-made playlists that is supposed to help a person be calm. This feature is flexible, however, because if you do not like these playlists, you can create your own. The next feature this app includes is a survey for the users to fill out which includes questions about your age, gender, and anxiety. I think this helps the app become more personalized for each user. The main feature of the app is the ability to create tasks for yourself--no matter how small-- and be able to complete them. I think this idea is awesome because it lets the person set their own pace and not feel pressured to do anything. However, one of my favorite features in this app is the ability for someone with anxiety to be able to speak to someone for help. When they demonstrated it using a classmate, I thought it was really neat. The end of the presentation included the Business plan which all sounded very realistic and reasonable.

Overall, I really, really liked this project. I think it has so much potential and could actually be a real app that helps people with anxiety disorders. I did not really see many flaws in their presentation. They all spoke very well, did not read from the slides, and seemed very knowledgeable about their subject!

Vote-Ified review

The people of the United States are not voting anymore, especially the younger generations. I find it so sad that our ancestors fought so hard for people to be able to vote freely, especially the African-Americans and women of our country, and now there are less people voting than ever. The project Vote-ified was created to address the problem of people not voting. I found it most surprising that the number one reason people are not voting is because they are "too busy", which is what the creation of this app and website is supposed to address. The project tries to combat the problem of low voter turnout using three strategies: Awareness, Engagement, and Efficiency.

For the first strategy, Awareness, the app will keep you updated on who the candidates are that are running for elections. It will also provide videos of debates from these candidates. The next strategy, Engagement, aims to match you up with the candidate you agree on with the most issues. It includes a survey that asks you questions such as, "Do you agree with abortion?" and based on your answer it will match you with the candidate that has the same viewpoint. I think this is actually a good idea in theory; however, it was not actually included in the app. The group mentioned that the app would have this function, but did not actually create it in there. I think this may be because they had to pay for the full version of the app editor to do this? The last strategy for this project was, Efficiency, which enabled the user to see candidate updates, news, and even search for their polling location and get directions. This section also included an election calendar and a link to take you to a government website to register to vote. The app also includes lists of federal and state laws that the user may peruse through and a blog. The blog is written from the point of view of lawyers and student lawyers about newly passed laws and court decisions that might affect the people of the United States. I found this part really neat because I think it would be really interesting to read what lawyers would have to say. 

We need something to improve voter turnout especially among the younger generations, and I think this project has a lot of potential, but I do think there are a few flaws. Firstly, as minor as it may seem, there were a few grammatical errors on the website and in the app, and I think that brings down the professionalism of the project. Second, I was a bit skeptical about the funding of the project. I am not sure how they will be getting the lawyers to participate in the blog and how or if they will pay them. Lastly, I felt like most of the members of the group giving the presentation were a bit unenthusiastic and unprepared. I feel like there were several moments of just silence when they were asked questions, and no one seemed like they wanted to answer the question. However, I'm sure it had more to do with nervousness than anything else.

Overall I think this is a good project, especially since everything is in one centralized location and easily accessible.