I've finally decided on the project I want to develop for the Dev + Twilio Hackathon: A Mood Tracking SMS application to make it easy, even in low-bandwidth or low-wifi situations, to be able to check-in on how you're feeling and see trends over time.

The What

The goal is get a full web application up and running with Twilio SMS (and maybe MMS) integrated with secure authentication.

I will be building the application using node.js for the web services and React for the front end experience. I'll probably go with SQL for the data storage, likely Postgres, and I'll use Heroku (may change my mind later) to host the application.

The Why

During this time of sheltering-in-place, it may be hard to be in isolation from the social spheres you've had in any form. It's also a time that may be hard to form habits that haven't been your routine, such as meditation, journaling, deep self-reflection and/or reaching out to friends and talking over the phone.

So, this app aims to meet anyone where they are, with a technical approach to making an accessible, lo-fi way for you to simply record your current mood/feeling.

The How

The application will a few main aspects to the experience:

• User Registration and Authentication
• SMS delivered mood prompts and check-ins (for the user to reply to)
• A dashboard to see trends over time
• A trusted contacts area where you can add one or more phone numbers to request a contact to check in on you as well as allow you to send a check in message to your contact
• Schedulable mood prompts so that you get prompted when you want to

The Where

I'll also be livecoding the journey over at my channel on Twitch (depending on when you read this, might not be any videos there yet, but check back soon!), usually around 7PM PST (but maybe earlier). Your best bet is to check in on my channel page or my Twitter (@_jjphillips) for any changes. I'll also have a series recapping from start to submission (due in 9 days!?!?!!) on my site and syndicating it on my dev.to page (you might be reading this on one or the other).

4/22 7:00PM PST - the journey begins!