Kukui Cup Competition: Brainstorm

After researching about other dorm energy competitions, the Kukui Cup Competition Design group held our first team meeting where we discussed the content of the design and engaged in some brainstorming. I realized that there is a lot more work involved in this project than I had originally thought and there are many things we still need to get straightened out. We talked mostly about the content of the system but we did not get to the use cases yet. We also talked about the prizes that would be given out as incentive during the competition but without knowing how our budget is going to look, we could not make concrete decisions.

A couple days ago I emailed Balsamiq about our competition project and they were kind enough to let me use a license for this project for free! I love supporting companies that I feel have good products as well as good ethics. If I ever have to use products in the future I will be sure to purchase it from Balsamiq because I like their philanthropic spirit, as one commentator put it. Here is their company blog about donating their software: link. Hopefully by next week I can already have initial mockups using the Balsamiq software.

Kukui Cup: Competition Design

It is a new semester and I am now in Software Engineering II. We are working on a new project called the Kukui Cup where students from different dorms at the University of Hawaii at Manoa will compete in an energy competition. My group consists of myself, Scott Wong, Anthony Xu, John Mack, Wing Ma, and Shanah Trevennah. We are responsible from the design of the competition and will be using Balsamiq to create a mock up of the website.

Here is a list of tasks that I think need to be done for the design of the competition:
1) Research:

• Research other dorm energy competitions to see what worked and what did not work
• Research behavioral change methods to see how effectively apply behavioral changes in peoples lives

2a) Content:

• Come up with ways of increasing energy awareness and increasing the knowledge of the participants on energy usage (how to deliver the information)
  
• Think of ways to use personal commitments as a means of reducing energy consumption
• Use social norms to encourage participation in the competition through social network sites such as Facebook or Twitter
  

2b) Competition:

• Create a list of rules that participants must follow during the competition
• Create a point based system on how the competition can be won
• Come up with a list of possible prizes as a reward for the winners of the competition
  

3) Website (layout/structure):

• Use Balsamiq to create a mock up of the website to include the content we have chosen

We will be meeting soon to assign the tasks and come up with a game plan.
Link: UH dorm energy competition project site