My reason:

My reason is to help people deal with mental health issues.

My story:

Mental health issues are a big problem, especially among people of my age group. I do not have any major mental health issues, but I recently had a discussion about them with someone close to me, which made me realize how terribly we as a society handle them. Mental health issues are blown out of proportion as huge and terrible things, where in reality they are quite common. For my senior project, I wanted to create something that could help people, specifically teenagers with mental health issues.

My resources:

I have a computer on which I can create my idea, and teachers and student at LREI that can help me get through issues.

My strengths:

I’ve always been the type of person to do a project in one go, start to finish. Throughout my years of high school, I’ve learned that I can be the most efficient if I just sit down, turn off distractions, and work for hours straight without breaks. For most, this would feel painful, but for me, I just need to jump in and get my work done with.

My result:

My result would be a program or app in which someone chats with a bot I have programmed. The app would be for people with mental health issues who for whatever personal reason aren’t comfortable seeing a therapist. The bot would attempt to comfort the person, while gently encouraging the user to seek professional help.

My purpose:

My purpose is to help people to improve their mental health. I want to create something that can help people dealing with mental health issues, in a way that is independent of any outside source of help. Going to therapy is a big deal for many people, so I want to create a step in between, something to help them to the best of their abilities while helping the person organize therapy.