GoBabyGo is a grassroots organization centered around the modification of off-the-shelf ride-on-cars to provide an alternative to traditional powered mobility devices (such as power-wheelchairs) for children with motor disabilities. GoBabyGo provides families with modified ride-on-cars that are outfitted for the child's specific needs by administrators and clinicians who are familiar with the organization. These modified ride-on-cars provide children with independent mobility, while also being a fun, customizable, low-cost, and socially interactive alternative to powered mobility devices. GoBabyGo currently spans 17+ US states and 7+ countries around the world. In each of these locations, families in the community are provided with a modified ride-on-car that is specifically built for their child's needs.
We aim to improve the communication and socialization between members and families involved with GoBabyGo and provide a central organized location of information for GoBabyGo with the development of a cross-platform mobile application, available for both Android and IOS users. The mobile application will allow clinicians, administrators, therapists, families, and prospective researchers to access the larger GoBabyGo community for improved use of the modified ride-on-cars, and easily accessible information and research. This includes activity prompts from clinicians to to improve consistent use of the vehicles, ideas to improve use of the modified ride-on-cars in difficult environments, safety suggestions, and many more. Encouraging consistent use of the modified ride-on-cars is the cornerstone of this project. To best support families utilizing the cars provided by GoBabyGo Oregon, the mobile app implements a goal-tracking feature for families to track their usage of the cars. The families can also customize their weekly goals for use of the modified ride-on-cars to steadily grow their consistent use of the cars. Supplementing the goal-tracking and time log features are the FAQ and activity pages. The Frequently Asked Questions page has information that any user might need from time to time, such as how to contact GoBabyGo. The activity section contains content that was provided to us by our project partners. These activities are separated into different categories that enable easy navigation for the user to quickly and efficiently find the activity they are interested in. Using Flutter/Dart and a realtime database through Google Firebase, we are able to provide the user an experience as described above. Because of our application, users can engage with different activities, as well as track their time and progress towards their goal.
