For my Citizen 410 class, I decided to take Professor Dolence’s HON Lancer Launchpad. In this class, we were tasked with coming up with a problem that exists in our worlds and a physical solution to solve it. My partner, Rachel Iman, and I both love Halloween, but realized its restrictions it has on individuals in our lives – her sister has some severe food allergies, and my brother with autism has difficulty with accessibility with Trick or Treating. To combat this problem, we decided we would create an app to make the event of Trick or Treating more safe and accessible for all children. Below is our business video explaining our app – Trick or Track.
In order to test how the app would work, we decided that we were going to hold a simulation of the app. To do this, we decided to collaborate with the College Panhellenic Council’s 9 sororities here at Longwood to hold a Trick or Treating event for members of the Longwood and Farmville community. We created a flyer and sent it out to professors and members of the Longwood community, as well as posted it on the Farmville Facebook page to reach a wide audience. At the event, each sorority was provided a table in the space to decorate as they pleased, as well as provided each with a different type of candy, which was labeled on a mock version of the “Home page”. Overall, we had about 10 Trick or Treaters show up in the hour that we held our simulation, and each of them were able to successfully use the mock versions of our app to have a safe and accessible experience. We also got confirmation from the head of Fraternity and Sorority Life that she would like to make this a recurring, yearly event. Overall, this class was a refreshing switch from my ongoing education world to a more business-centric mindset, and get to explore a problem outside of my bubble. We were able to have complete freedom of choice in our topics, allowing us all to focus on topics that we are passionate about.