Ava Arshadi

Our team designed a mobile app that empowers a specific audience to help improve part of the chain of food collection and distribution

Older adults in rural areas are one of the most vulnerable groups in regards to food insecurity. On top of that, the pandemic is dramatically increasing food insecurity and straining an extremely stressed supply.

We decided to focus on Humboldt County in rural California, because it has a large older adult population who lack access to fresh foods. To combat their lack of access, we discovered Food for People, which is a nonprofit food distribution organization located in Humboldt County who struggle to reach those in need due to limited budget and needing more volunteers.

Our team created a mobile app that would assist in online food deliveries completed by Food for People volunteers. Our platform provides autonomy to older adults by the ability to pick and choose the food they want, similar to a grocery shopping experience.

Through laughter and competitive fun, Trash City incites board game enthusiasts to become more environmentally conscious by learning how to differentiate between different types of trash and how each gets recycled uniquely.

How can we create a fun and engaging yet environmentally conscious board game that can teach players how to effectively recycle?

Players had the most fun when they could be competitive against one another, and became invested into the game when they felt a sense of attachment and ownership to a mechanic in the game.

We created a fast-paced, competitive board game where players are the mayor of a trash filled city, tasked with creating enough resources and trash processing centers to rid their city of trash for good - which may result in sabotaging other mayors in the process.

Designing the Call of Duty companion app for female players that consistently get harassed by verbally abusive, toxic teammates.

41% of all gamers are female – and as a collective experience the same disturbing harassment over voice chat while playing online. We found that this problem is not unique to Call of Duty, but transcends to all first-person shooter games. The solution? Filter out toxic players through a robust player rating system that incentivizes players to rate by acquiring in-game rewards, and allows players to pick and choose who they get paired with by setting teammate preferences based off their top-rated traits and playing styles.

There are two major factors that cause offensive behavior in gaming, either the players are intrinsically aggressive, or the players are motivated by competition to act aggressively. Toxic behavior in gaming is extremely prominent due to lack of accountability or punishment. Since there is no immediate consequence or gratification when a report is submitted, many players see the reporting system as not useful and prefer to mute or ignore them instead.

Rather than attempting to punish bad behavior, an effective method of accountability is to incentivize good behavior amongst players. Rewards being given to quality teammates motivates players to both increase their skillset as well as act as a team player, in turn promoting a culture of positive teammate encounters.