By the time Ivies comes around, the College is usually inundated with Ivies-related products. Class councils offer Ivies apparel, water bottles, and sunglasses. This year, however, there’s a new product on the Ivies bandwagon: the Ivies iPhone application.
Connor Smith ’13 and Tristan McCormick ’13 have designed an app that they call “Ivies Companion.” The app is meant to serve as a “tool to enhance the Ivies experience in terms of fun and safety,” according to Smith. Smith and McCormick put the app together in a week, aided by the graphic design skills of Youngshim Hwang ’13.
“I had this idea as a joke to originally do a scaled-down Ivies app, that would basically tell you, ‘Is it Ivies yet?’ and give you a yes or no,” said Smith. “But then, I thought, we could make a pretty cool Ivies app, so I ran upstairs and said to Tristan, ‘let’s make an app.’ So one week later and with very little sleep we did.”
The app, which is free, has a number of appealing aspects. It offers a well-organized Ivies schedule, and both Bowdoin Security and Shuttle phone numbers programmed. A camera function allows users to take pictures with certain Ivies-themed watermarks, such as “#Ivies2013,” and “Certified Ivies 2013,” and easily share them via email, Facebook and Twitter. While the app is unaffiliated with the College, McCormick also included alcohol wellness and safety information from the College’s website on the app as precaution.
The most intricate element of the app is the blood-alcohol content (BAC) calculator, which is based off of a user’s gender, weight, and number of drinks consumed. It also tracks the amount of drinks one imbibes over a period of time—unless reset—in order to factor that information into the BAC calculation. Smith said, “The BAC calculator was both for fun, but also for keeping you in check.”
The app has been approved and is available today in the Apple app store. To help it catch on among the student body, the creators plan to advertise through posters, social media, and word of mouth. Smith is optimistic about the app’s future.
“Hopefully the code is something that can be used next year,” he said. Asked if he and McCormick hoped to make it a tradition, Smith responded, “Yeah, that’s our goal.”