The HobbyMate Prototype is a prototype of an application designed in a group of 4 to help people learn and pick up new hobbies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project consisted of 4 phases:
Below you can find the results from each phase of the project.
By: Anushan V., Minh H., Connor A., Ken Z. Date: September 23, 2020
Lockdowns have been issued in many parts of the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people are encouraged to stay indoors and only leave the house for essential needs. Although some people are fine with staying indoors for most of the day, there are people who normally spend their free time outside and do not have anything to do indoors. This lack of activity encourages those people to leave the house to fulfill their entertainment needs.
Our project is an app that is designed to help people stuck indoors find a new activity or hobby that they can spend time learning in the comfort of their home. Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been people that have taken time to try out new hobbies such as learning to cook and playing instruments. The issue that people trying new hobbies may face is that what they are learning may not be for them. Someone may purchase a piano just to lose interest in learning how to play it which would be a waste of money. This could also discourage the same person to not learn a different instrument even if they could be skilled in it.
Our app will solve this problem by providing people with the tools they need to learn a specific hobby at a budget by letting them rent out equipment they may need. It will also provide users with resources that they will need to master the equipment they want to learn to use. They will also have the option to purchase the equipment if they decided the hobby is right for them. All equipment will be disinfected after each rental service to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Our goal with this app is to give active outdoor people something to do indoors during the lockdown to keep them inside and prevent the spread of COVID-19 by providing activities or hobbies that people can learn on a budget.
Sub Idea(s):
Part 2a involved creating questionnaires and interview questions to conduct research on how hobbies were affected during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In part 2b, the questionnaire and interview results are reported. Furthermore, a task analysis and scenarios are performed to determine how people learn new hobbies. Finally, we come up with some requirements needed to fulfill the project needs.