If you haven’t already heard of the app CampusScene, I highly suggest you get on your smartphone ASAP and download it. This app was designed specifically for Hamilton by an amazing group of freshman boys, including Farzad Khosravi, Noah Lowentha, Michael Nelson and Matias Wolansky. It provides current information on all-campus and sports events, allows you to read The Spectator and even listen to WHCL! Go to their Facebook page and check it out: https://www.facebook.com/CampusScene
How did you guys first come up with the idea?
One of our members, on a Friday night out, noticed a group of students walking around and tearing all the posters they see. He was appalled and angry at the waste, especially since the school is on a tight budget, not to mention that posters have a huge environmental impact (especially due to the ink used).
Aside from this anecdote, we recognized together that there is a big problem on campus. The problem is that finding out about events is very hard. E-mails are extremely annoying and ignored by most students and posters are just as ineffective, aside from their environment impact. Hamilton, in general, lacks a way to aggregate and easily see the events happening on campus. After testing our hypothesis with multiple students and further deliberating amongst ourselves, we realized that our campus needs a more effective way to connect students to each other and their campus.
How long did it take you to develop the app?
We have worked for around four months designing and perfecting the app, and we are far from done yet. The app is only in its earliest stages, and we will be working over the summer to completely recode it and better serve Hamilton with private events, subscriptions to event feeds, and much, much more.
The idea is so awesome, what kind of feedback have you been getting?
We have had a tremendous outpouring of support from students all over Hamilton. We’ve gotten emails of support, suggested feature additions, and, yes, a few bug reports. Every suggestion helps us make the app better, and we’ve revised our future plans significantly based on the Campus reception.
Have you gotten any support from the Hamilton administration?
We have received positive responses from a few faculty and administration members, but on the whole the administration has not been receptive. An administrator has even said that our app is exactly the same as the The Scroll, the just-launched social media aggregator.
Do you have any plans for future expansion of the app?
Absolutely. We’re hoping to make the app even more intuitive by allowing you to subscribe to specific feeds of events you are interested to, and then placing all of your most relevant events, interactions, articles, etc. on a home screen. We are dedicated to Hamilton and Hamilton students; this is the community we care about. Only once we feel that we’ve completed our mission here will we begin thinking about expanding to other schools