Analyze, recreate, test and refine the customer journey for film fans using the Pyralume social streaming app, ensuring a seamless and engaging experience, emphasizing user-centric design principles and leveraging feedback loops to optimize functionality.
In-Class Project Showcase April 2025
A device which depressurizes a crucible of salt water to boil at a lower temperature. It boils the water and then collects the water vapor from the crucible into a separate collection chamber, leaving the salt behind and condensing as fresh water. The pump, hot plate and sensors are powered by a 1KW solar panel.
This project explores overtourism in Banff, analyzing its causes, including accessibility and social media, and its impacts on the environment, local communities, and the economy. It proposes sustainable tourism strategies to balance visitor growth with preservation.
The WeVibe app achieves this by matching users who have the same interests and allowing them to make some limited communication before asking each user if they wish the converse more. If both users agree, a secondary match is made unlocking the ability to view the each other’s full profiles and allows unlimited communication to begin.
ProFinder’s mission is to provide a cross-platform software solution that expedites the process of connecting everyday individuals to trusted licensed professionals across a wide diversity of industries, while offering an intuitive means to tailor their results through profile preferences and search engine options. Our application will empower everyday users to freely discover new practicing professionals that align with their preferences, while giving licensed professionals the ability to highlight their strengths and preferred areas of focus/specialization.
The project is still in a prototyping stage, aiming to demonstrate design components and initial developments of our unique value proposition for a more ambitious concept.
The rise in global temperatures is leading to extreme summer season heat events, which are having adverse effects on the health and safety of individuals inside buildings. In Canada, building regulations are evolving to mandate at least one dwelling space in residential units to have cooling system to reduce the negative impacts of extreme heat on the well-being and safety of residents. One such proposal is currently being discussed by the National Model Code Committees of the Canadian Board for Harmonized Construction Codes. However limited data and information is available, especially in the context of building regulations, to assess the anticipated outcome of these modifications to the building regulations. This project aims to fill that gap by assessing the energy and cost implications of mechanical cooling systems in multi-unit residential buildings.
Recysort is an advanced recycling bin designed to automate waste sorting. Using smart sensors, it detects and separates materials like plastic, glass, and metal, reducing contamination and improving recycling efficiency. With fast processing and intelligent design, Recysort makes recycling easier, cleaner, and more effective for a sustainable future.
Youth of Ottawa have significant opportunities to participate in recreation, which helps them grow both physically and mentally. Through secondary research, we defined our objective: to understand the various factors that influence youth engagement and retention in recreational programs.
By collecting data from recreation program coordinators, we identified key themes related to our objective, including informal feedback collection, the need for friendly coaches, barriers to accessing program information, a lack of youth-preferred communication channels, and opportunities and limitations in collaboration. Addressing these gaps can help engage youth more effectively and encourage long-term participation in recreation programs.
This project aligns with the City of Ottawa’s goal of creating integrated and accessible systems, ensuring that youth programs are engaging and welcoming. Our research supports long-term solutions that promote participation, strengthen connections between youth and their communities, and make recreation more meaningful for all.
Anka Care provides structured digital assistance for individuals undergoing breast cancer treatment, focusing on practical daily management needs. The platform organizes complex medical information while maintaining emphasis on accessibility and personal relevance.
Medication management
It enables detailed recording of pharmaceutical regimens, including dosage specifications and administration schedules. This centralized tracking system allows users to maintain chronological records of their treatment history while receiving automated reminders for upcoming doses. Planned enhancements include compatibility analysis between prescribed medications and nutritional supplements.
Symptom documentation tools
This one facilitates daily logging of physical experiences with multi-dimensional severity assessment. Recorded data transforms into temporal visualizations through interactive charts, enabling users to identify patterns and correlations between treatment phases and physiological responses. These graphical representations can be compiled into compact reports for clinical consultations.
Educational content
It’s delivered based on the initial answers from the patient, assessing diagnosis details, and therapeutic protocol. Weekly video modules address stage-specific considerations, ranging from surgical preparation to long-term recovery strategies. Content curation emphasizes clarity of medical terminology while maintaining clinical accuracy.
Anka care prioritizes user control through customizable interface preferences and selective data sharing capabilities. Account management includes multi-factor authentication and configurable privacy settings. Future development roadmaps outline expansion plans for additional oncology specialties while maintaining current focus on breast cancer-specific tools.
This combination of organizational tools and adaptive learning resources aims to reduce administrative burdens during cancer treatment, allowing patients to concentrate energy on personal health priorities. Continuous feature development follows clinical best practices while incorporating direct patient feedback mechanisms.
Team Learnings
Throughout the development of Anka Care, the team gained valuable insights into the unique challenges faced by breast cancer patients and the healthcare professionals who support them. Key learnings include the importance of balancing clinical accuracy with user-friendly design to ensure accessibility for patients with varying levels of health literacy, as well as the need for adaptive content delivery to address the diverse and evolving needs of patients across different treatment phases. The team also recognized the value of patient feedback in shaping platform features and the significance of data security and privacy in building trust with users. These learnings have not only enhanced the platform’s functionality but also deepened the team’s understanding of patient-centered care in the digital health space.
Team Challenges
The development of Anka Care presented several challenges, including the complexity of integrating and accurately presenting medical data in a comprehensible and actionable way for patients. Balancing robust functionality with an intuitive and accessible user interface was another key challenge, as was navigating the stringent regulatory requirements for digital health platforms in both Canada and the United States. Ensuring compliance with Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) in Canada and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S. required meticulous attention to data privacy, security, and patient consent protocols, adding layers of complexity to the platform’s design and implementation. Resource allocation and managing competing priorities within project timelines also posed difficulties, as did encouraging consistent platform usage among patients during physically and emotionally demanding phases of treatment. Despite these challenges, the team remained committed to delivering a solution that prioritizes patient well-being, adheres to the highest standards of data protection, and aligns with the healthcare values of inclusivity, accessibility, and innovation in both Canada and the United States.
There are many workers who have an occupational responsibility to respond to trauma, but are not considered traditional first responders (i.e., police, fire, and paramedic). Such professions include (but are not limited to) correctional officers, frontline homeless shelter staff and security, harm reduction and supervised consumption site workers, and search and rescue teams. Research demonstrates that individuals in these professions experience similar trauma-responses to first responders, albeit often without the same support and safeguards. The study described in this protocol paper aims to explore the burnout and resilience experienced by these overlooked “forgotten” first responders. Using a mixed-methods approach, including an online survey, focus groups, and semi-structured interviews, the study will investigate burnout rates, resilience strategies, and barriers to well-being faced by people doing this important work.