Henry Ford College team advances to Community College Innovation Challenge with scheduling app
This June, the team from Henry Ford College will be competing in the Community College Innovation Challenge with their AI powered scheduling app Moment.
The team from Henry Ford College has been named one of a dozen finalists in the 2023 Community College Innovation Challenge by the American Association of Community Colleges and the National Science Foundation.
The Community College Innovation Challenge is in its seventh year and seeks to strengthen entrepreneurial lines of thought in community college students. The challenge encourages participants to create innovative solutions to real-world problems and enables them to discover and perform their capacity to use STEM subjects to make a positive difference in the world and bring their education into action.
Henry Ford College is the only community college in Michigan participating in the Community College Innovation Challenge. Over the past decade, Henry Ford College has been one of the top finalists in the challenge five times, in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2021, in addition to this year. It is worth noting that there was no competition during the 2019-2020 academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Henry Ford College students taking part in the competition this year are Soliman Touelh, Hasan Termos, Bryant Bagnall, and Alayna Kondraciuk. These students are all part of the Henry Ford II Honors Program. The students are being mentored by HFC physics and astronomy instructor Jesse Mason and HFC Pre-Engineering Program Director Dr. Hassan Mohseni Nameghi.
In an article on Henry Ford College’s website, Dr. Nameghi talked about the competition, saying, "Innovation is a fine line between ambition and resilience, and that is who we are. We are blessed with creative students who are trying very hard to turn their ideas to reality.”
A challenge for many students is learning to deal with distractions and having difficulty with dynamic schedules and time management. Having a difficult time managing one’s time effectively can lead to underperformance in school and beyond. With this in mind, the Henry Ford College team designed an app concept called Moment.
Moment is designed to address the issue of time management by incorporating artificial intelligence to build personalized and effective dynamic schedules for students without the user needing to manually enter a lot of information, or spend too much time micromanaging their tasks. Moment will use machine learning techniques to automatically create realistic schedules from a range of entered information like typed notes, voice inputs, pictures of syllabi, PDF files, and more. The app will be programmed in the Python coding language.
The app will make schedules divided into time blocks that are then filled with microtasks based on the priority of the user, and then send reminders about upcoming events. Students will then be able to revise the schedule manually, and the app will use those changes, and other behavior patterns, to learn from that information. Moment will also be able to adapt to unforeseen circumstances like a missed task.
Kondraciuk talked about how the idea for Moment came about, saying, “We were talking about online classes during the pandemic and how distractions and focus were an issue for students. This idea evolved into a lack of focus and time-management, especially for college students. Then, we brainstormed a solution that would tackle all sides of the issue.”
She went on to talk about the importance of using AI in the app: “Among other things, Moment will incorporate app-blocking, habit-tracking, and AI to improve the user experience. The unique part of Moment, which is also my favorite part, is the AI. The app will reschedule your plan if you miss an agenda item and also learn your ‘algorithm’ to improve your future schedules. It's really neat. Ultimately, Moment will teach users how to plan their own effective schedules and identify what works for them.”
While a Moment user is performing one of the scheduled tasks, the app will limit access to other apps, like social media platforms, which will give the student a “moment” to focus on that task. Moment is integrated with the Pomodoro Technique, which is a time management method that uses 25 minute work blocks and 5 minute breaks. This will allow users to take frequent breaks, while still being productive.
Bagnall talked about the teamwork the AI and the user will have, saying, “Moment is an AI-powered app that will do all of this legwork for the student, uniquely based on their focusing habits. We hope that, after some time using the app regularly, the habits will become ingrained in the student and they might not even need the app as much. I believe Moment will help students understand that the fastest way to get through a bunch of tasks is to knock them out one by one with intentionally planned time for each task.”
Moment provides real-time assessment through its habit tracker and reward feature that provides points and badges. Every time the user completes a task, they will earn a certain amount of points which the team hopes will fill the student with a sense of accomplishment.
The more a student uses the app, the better they will be able to develop strong time management habits and the better they will be at staying focused and productive. The app aims to improve the quality of life for its users. The app aims to teach students to manage their time effectively so that they can meet deadlines, prioritize tasks, and reduce stress and anxiety.
These skills should lead to better academic and professional performance, which will help students have better mental health who will be able to finish their education more efficiently, while also reducing the number of people who do not complete their academic programs. A more efficient higher education experience could lead to lower student loan debt.
The overall goal for Moment is to give students more of a sense of control over their lives.
The president and CEO of AACC, Walter G. Bumphus, spoke about the finalists saying, “On behalf of AACC, I would like to congratulate the 2023 CCIC finalists. Each year I am impressed and inspired by the level of talent displayed by these community college students, and I am very proud to partner with the NSF to provide a platform for these future leaders that are taking on the real-world challenges with creative, thoughtful, and transformational proposals.”
The Henry Ford College team will attend the Innovation Challenge Boot Camp in mid-June in Alexandria, VA, at the Hilton Alexandria Old Town. The boot camp will provide the participants with hands-on learning opportunities which will help the finalist teams further develop their ideas and projects. The teams will take part in workshops and technical assistance focused on building strategic communication skills, entrepreneurship, and innovation.
The Henry Ford College team will use the boot camp as an opportunity to receive coaching in building entrepreneurial and communication skills that will allow them to better innovate in both the public and private sectors. The sessions in which they take part will include information that will help them refine a pitch, communicate with stakeholders, use technology for social applications, and commercialize ideas.
The boot camp will finish with a Student Innovation Poster Session on Capitol Hill, which will be attended by Congressional stakeholders and STEM leaders. It will also have a pitch presentation which will determine the top three winning teams.
NSF assistant director of the Directorate for STEM 2 Education, James L. Moore III, talked about the importance of the bootcamp helping the attendees build their STEM skills “to grow the nation’s STEM capacity, the United States must invest more in community colleges. With the increasing demand for skilled technical workers, they occupy a significant space in preparing diverse students for today’s STEM workforce. I extend my congratulations to this year’s finalists, and I look forward to seeing how their work can make a difference in the world by translating knowledge into action.”
Presently, the creators of Moment have built an interface using the interface design program Figma, and the programming language Swift. The scheduling and time-blocking algorithm was programmed in Python. The developers are looking at current AI engines to determine which will be the best at processing the information and sorting the schedule and outcomes. They are also currently looking for investors to help fund initial and operational costs like setting up a server.
Bagnall and Kondraciuk both said that they were surprised that Moment became a finalist in the CCIC.
“I was not expecting to be a finalist. I am excited for the opportunity during the week in the Washington, D.C. area. Our team will be attending specialized workshops in the hopes of helping us further develop our idea for Moment,” said Bagnall.
Kondraciuk added, “Dr. Nameghi was so confident in our project. He had a feeling we would be finalists. The last thing he said after our submission was ‘Looking forward to great news.’ I was still really surprised and excited when I found out, though.”
Dr. Nameghi was not surprised, however: “2023 is the year of AI, and our idea uses this technology to help students with time-management and focus. Additionally, our team aimed for perfection and were open to any critiques to improve the work. We have been working almost three months with a lot of progress in making an interface and a platform for our app,” he said.
Moment is currently targeted toward students, but according to Kondraciuk, anyone can benefit from the app: “Even though I use a planner and track my homework on a spreadsheet, this app will still teach me how to manage my time better. Sometimes I don't incorporate enough free time for myself, which can lead to burnout. Moment will teach me balance – something a lot of college students need.”
More information about Henry Ford College can be found at the school’s website.