Air Stories

Air Stories is an Android and web-based application that allows its users to start reading and writing at the cost of just a few taps or clicks and encourages its users to engage in active participation in literature and promotes book reading. We implement this by creating a semi-controlled com

Project Title

Air Stories

Project Area of Specialization

Computer Science

Project Summary

Air Stories is an Android and web-based application that allows its users to start reading and writing at the cost of just a few taps or clicks and encourages its users to engage in active participation in literature and promotes book reading. We implement this by creating a semi-controlled community-based infrastructure where the users can interact with the both the app and authors of the literature they read.

 “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body”

Reading is extremely beneficial to one’s mental health, and one should read as much as possible. The importance of a reading habit is that it strengthens mental muscles. Reading is one of the best mental workouts out there as it stimulates your mind. It has been found that regular mental stimulation can slow down and possibly even prevent diseases like Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Reading also keeps your mind agile, young and improves your thinking skills and analytical abilities.

However, in the world of digital technology where inactive entertainment in the form of videos is freely available at the cost of a few taps, one may find himself getting more and more distant from the mental exercise that is called book reading. A lot of the entertainment these days lasts for a short amount of time (YouTube videos etc.) which in result makes our minds get used to a short term focus. However, a lot of important things in life require a long term focus (studies, work etc.) and it is possible to improve that by reading because most of the books require a relatively long term commitment.

One of the biggest problems nowadays is over-usage of mobile phones and computers for wastage of time without doing anything productive. This pushes them further away from reading. This project will try to encourage its users to read and write more, engage in healthy participation regarding literature by providing the new writers with a platform for sharing their work and the non-readers a chance to get started at reading by consistent encouragement through its features and ultimately provide them with the very important mental exercise.

Other reading applications that already exist either have a toxic culture or are catered to a specific group. Furthermore, they are useful for when you are already into reading and/or writing, but do not specifically do anything that encourages their users to do so. This is the problem that we seek to solve by our application Air Stories with our journaling, mood tracking and accountable to-do list.

Project Objectives

The objectives of Air Stories are a website and an Android application that have the following features:

Profiles Creation

Integrated account profile login and sign-up

Reading stories

Users will be able to read the stories that other users on the application have published.

Word Toolkit for writing stories

Users will be able to write the stories on their Android Phone or Website using a word processing toolkit provided within our app.

Comment under stories

Users will be able to drop comments under the stories they have read.

Likes/Votes count

The application has up-vote points called appreciate. The users can choose to leave a positive response by dropping an appreciate on the stories. This also has an impact on the search result ranking of the stories.

Accountable to-do list

The application has an accountable activity list that user can choose to enable. If enabled, it will ask the user to put in activities in the beginning of the day and then ask at night whether the user was able to complete those tasks and encourages the users in each case.

Daily Journaling System

Users can write private journals whenever they feel like they want to write something to get off their chest.

Mood Tracking

The application will ask the user randomly about how they are feeling. The data then will be gathered and may be usable for interesting ideas in the future.

Gratitude Journal

The application will ask the user randomly about what they are grateful for today.

Book Recommendation

Users can recommend books to other people in their circle.

Reading Circle

Users can add their friends in their reading circle.

Book Review

Users can write reviews of books they have read and then recommend someone to read it.

Reading List

Users can create a reading list of the stories they want to read.

Random short stories upon launching the app

The users can opt in for getting a random short story upon launching the app.

Social Media Integration

The application will have Social Media Integration that will allow them to make a short post every time they have written a short story or a book review.

Project Implementation Method

Air Stories will be implemented and executed using the Evolutionary Model.

Since this project has many different modules to implement different features, some being more crucial to the overall idea than others, we will be using one of the Iterative Methodologies namely Evolutionary Software Development Model. We will be adding more and more features on top of the previous ones depending on the time constraints of the project.

Benefits of the Project

The benefits of Air Stories are that more and more people start to read books and write more because both are very enlightening and can even have a positive impact on your personality as well as your whole life. It has been psychologically proven that reading and writing are also therapeutic as reading books and writing daily journals uplifts your mood.

This project specifically brings people using Android devices or Computers towards reading and writing for a mental exercise and discourages them from wasting time brainlessly scrolling on the other dreaded social media platforms. Many fully-fledged book readers have got started with book reading the same way by reading short stories or blogs or digests on the internet. Its beauty is that it is just a few taps away on an Android phone or a few clicks away on a computer.

Air Stories allows its users to read stories that have been written by other users on the platform or write stories using the word processor toolkit provided within our application. It also allows its users to interact with each other regarding literature, maintain a reading list, track their mood, write reviews for books, recommend stories to other people in their reading circle and write personal daily journals all encouraging a wholesome activity and uplifting everyone's moods.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

We implement Air Stories as an Android Application as well as a website both using a single database hosted on a server using RESTful architecture implemented using Javascript's runtime environment NodeJS's framework, Express.

Version Control: GitHub.

Android Development Tools:

• Programming Language: Java
• Markup Language: XML
• IDE: Android Studio.
• Architecture Pattern: MVC
• Push Notification API: Firebase

Website Development Tools:

• Programming Language: PHP, Javascript.
• Markup Language: HTML, CSS, Javascript.
• IDE: Sublime Text.
• Framework: Laravel
• Architecture Pattern: MVC
   

Server-side Development Tools:

• Programming Language: Javascript.
• Runtime environment: NodeJS
• Database: MySQL
• Architecture: RESTful
• IDE: Visual Studio Code.

Documentation Tools:

• Microsoft Word Processor 2019 
• Draw.io
• Gantt Chart

Final Deliverable of the Project

Software System

Core Industry

Media

Other Industries

Core Technology

Others

Other Technologies

Sustainable Development Goals

Good Health and Well-Being for People, Quality Education

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com