Week 1 Team Update: Progress, Research, and... a Chair Incident

Introduction

This week was a whirlwind of ideation, research, and some unexpected stress-testing of furniture (more on that later). Week 1 has officially wrapped up, and we’ve got plenty of exciting developments to share!

Breaking Ground with Research and Ideation

We kicked off by splitting into specialized teams, each tackling a crucial aspect of our app development. Our ideation team jumped right into rapid brainstorming, tossing out interface ideas and evolving our vision on the fly. Meanwhile, our research team embarked on a mission to gather intel on caregiver routines, communication methods (hello, WhatsApp overload!), and the tech that will make it all work smoothly.

Some of our research highlights:

• Annabelle and Emmy dove into Radix and Shadcn, exploring themes and UI components.
• Angus started working on authentication solutions like Next Auth to secure our app.
• Max (yours truly!) took on the challenge of integrating the Google Calendar API, trying to ensure caregivers can seamlessly manage schedules.
• Vitor explored cutting-edge AI solutions with LangChain and LangGraph.
• Angus and Max also teamed up to get into testing with Vitest, ensuring our code is solid (wink wink) from the start.

All this research lays the groundwork for our app’s core functionality, from secure user login to beautiful, animated UI and seamless scheduling.

What Did We Learn?

Our research unveiled some key insights about caregiver workflows and technology needs, helping us rethink some of our key values. Caregivers are juggling tools like WhatsApp, but they’re craving a more centralized way to manage their schedules and notes. With this in mind, we’re fine-tuning our app to be a one-stop shop for both caregivers and families.

And Now… The Chair Story

And yes, we can’t sign off without mentioning the moment of the week. During one of our meetings, I, Max, decided to get a little too comfortable by sitting on the backrest of a chair. Let’s just say, the chair was not up for the challenge. One might argue I was merely performing an impromptu stress test, but the chair, unfortunately, failed spectacularly. RIP chair. We now know one thing: our app’s stress-testing might need some work too.

Overall, it's been a week filled with sweat, tears, and, well, a bit of broken furniture. Looking forward to sharing more updates as we head into Week 2!

Stay tuned — and maybe don’t sit directly on the back rest of your chair while you wait.

— Max & The Team