Our first project in Advanced Mobile App Development is to “Create a multi view interactive iOS App. This could include apps that do any combination of the following: perform calculations, work with user data or data from a server, respond to user events, or any other type of interactivity.”

App’s inspiration and goal

Shortly after being assigned this assignment, I attended the Monster Jam in Denver, CO. It was my first time going, and it was a monumental experience for me discovering something new. Such a celebratory gem with huge amounts of crowd engagement. Simply put, I loved the Monster Jam, and I’m excited to use this sentiment and momentum to make the app Vroom.

Vroom is a decision making app that encourages users to make informed decisions intentionally and to mitigate any additional emotional stress from the process. When using Vroom to help navigate a decision making process, the user will input how many choices are in contending in the decision. Then, they can choose specific monster trucks to represent that certain contender. Specs from each of the representative trucks will inform the contender that gets chosen.

Define your app’s audience

Vroom can be for anyone! But Vroom’s true impact will be experienced by individuals who follow Monster Trucks at all. They will be able to engage with the high energy of the monster truck community while also benefitting from the service of a decision making app.

Beyond purely making decisions, Vroom provides another enjoyable in-road to Monster Truck culture. Because the decision contenders are tied to trucks, Vroom draws upon how attached spectators get to the trucks and how each truck has its own unique presence in the community. Users can start to remember how well each truck does when, and anthropomorphize the trucks even more than they already are during rallies.

Research on precedents

Most of the decision maker apps on the app store are random-ized choice makers (like spinning a wheel, a plinko game, or roulette). There is a pro / con list app, where you can add weight to each side, but like I said most apps are game-fied. My app has two key advantages. Since randomization can exacerbate feeling a lack of control, the customizable nature of Vroom will provide users with a more grounded experience. Also, the ability to attach different decision “weights” to individual monster trucks lets the user express their priorities in a nuanced way. The second advantage is the theme. While most decision maker apps have a design theme, they are either very juvenile and game-like, or they are very neat and tidy office professional designs. Vroom will be the first monster truck themed decision maker app, and the expressive theme will appeal to a different community of users than the existing decision app design schemes.

Where will you be getting any content needed for the app?

Since the trucks will be competing head to head, I will need to be comparing their specs. This wiki site has an abundance of information on notable monster trucks, including the ones that have been selected for this app.

Specs that will be considered in the decision making process are: how big of a hit their theme song was (amount of money song has made), and paint job (which has the highest sum of R G B values on the truck). After adding those two values together, the truck with the highest total’s debut year will be compared to the second highest truck’s sum total. Whichever truck is older will win.

Individual truck specs:

• Gravedigger
• Alien Invasion
• Hotsy
• Great Clips Mohawk Warrior
• El Toro Loco
• El Toro Loco Ice
• Ice Cream Man
• Just Get Er Done 2
• Zombie
• Xtermigator

Other content needed for my app to successfully calculate the decision comes from input. Specifically, the user needs to set the number of contenders in the decision and select which truck represents each contender. These values will be passed into the calculation methods of Vroom!

Photos of paper prototype

Users will be able to navigate between main features with a tab bar controller on the bottom of the screen. Upon opening the app, users are shown the main decision maker scaffolding for them to begin to enter in details.

By tapping a “+” on one of the unassigned contenders, users can assign a truck to a contender. Options to expand on truck specs in the assignment view are available.

Once they select all contenders, users tap “DECIDE” and the decision is made!

If they choose to review the specs of each of the trucks, they can navigate over to a table view in the “specs” section.

The last feature is a “news” section. Just in case users want to keep up with the latest happenings in the Monster Truck community.