Procrastination is a common struggle, especially with phones and laptops offering tempting distractions. I was procrastinating a lot during the finals period and found myself stuck, brainstorming ideas for my final creative coding project at NYU…so I turned this struggle into the project itself.

To elevate the simplicity of a standard timer, I aimed to enhance user engagement by incorporating a unique feature to enhance focus. During the pandemic, many of my colleagues and I found it hard to focus at home so we often used Zoom to simulate the feeling of working together in the office. During the zoom call, we had our microphones off and just worked on our individual tasks to have the feeling of someone watching us. I found that really helpful so I started thinking about the ways I could simulate that the feeling with my Pomodoro timer. I used an ML software by ml5 called poseNet as well as the webcam feature that p5.js has to create a Pomodoro timer with features designed to bolster concentration and productivity.