Our project is an app called Reef Buddies. It targets the lack of awareness about the plight of coral reefs. The app encourages users to adopt a real-life coral cluster, making young people more inclined to take action to save the Great Barrier Reef.

After identifying our problem, a range of initial solutions were brainstormed. From these, we decided to sketch the Reef Buddies app, which we adapted and incorporated into our first prototype created on CODE.ORG. We trialled this prototype with Year 7, and reached out to multiple industry professionals for feedback. We contacted Dr Milne from the University of Technology Sydney, who advised us to make the process of receiving updates on the corals more efficient, by sending out the update drones weekly. From the feedback of users, we added audio where dense text existed, to make the app more inclusive.
Our testing shows that users have achieved greater insight into human-induced damage on coral reefs by using Reef Buddies. We would like to upscale our app’s software and reach, however, we are limited by coding expertise, and economic capabilities. It’s the first iteration but hopefully there are more to come!

Funds raised could help organisations to save the reef. Also, users will be more inclined to grow up to be environmentally conscious individuals who make a difference to our oceans.

Through research, we’ve learnt how quickly the reefs are degrading, and also realised how even something small, like our app, can make a huge difference.