Eddy
A classroom platform that pairs elementary students across different schools to close equity gaps in access to technology and enrichment.
01
The Challenge
Comparing our own school experiences made the funding gap obvious immediately, and none of us had gone to a school anyone would call under-resourced.
The assignment was to design a product around a UN Sustainable Development Goal; we chose Quality Education. Jayden's school in Central New Jersey had art, music, and computer-skills programs; Saanvi's in Acton, MA had music, STEM, debate, and a district-wide 1:1 device program; Olivia's in Brooklyn had limited STEM programs. So we went looking for a comparison point outside our own experience.
02
Discovery & Insights
The stakes were more concrete outside our own experience
Will Newkirk attended a public K–8 school in inner-city Minneapolis, underfunded through the 2010s recession; he never had access to personal computers to practice typing or basic technology skills, and said many of his peers are now in blue-collar jobs with little computer experience.
Technology integration depends on the student, not just the school
Saanvi's mom, an elementary school teacher in Boxborough, MA, told us technology integration varies widely by individual need: some kids benefit a lot from tech, others get distracted or overstimulated by it. She added that home environment and parent involvement matter as much as district funding.
Real competition, but real room too
The digital education market is projected to grow at roughly 28% CAGR to an estimated $66.7B by 2028. Existing tools like ClassDojo and Discovery Education charge around $109/year per subscription, and self-paced learning is growing even faster than instructor-led formats.
03
Design Process
All of this pointed to one guiding question: how might we create equitable learning opportunities for elementary school students across different income levels in Boston by creating technology that encourages personalized learning? Early concepts included a video-conferencing interface, an offline-capable activity library, gamified prompts, and structured buddy-getting-to-know-you activities. We looked at Zoom, Google Meet, and PBS Kids for interface inspiration, since we wanted something playful and familiar rather than enterprise classroom software.
Five core features
A buddy-pairing system built on an interest survey, a variety of educational activities, customizable student profiles, gamification (points and levels), and a class roadmap for both students and teachers to track progress.
Branding: naming and testing mascots
We named the product Eddy, combining 'education' with a mascot we could personify, and tested a fox, bear, frog, rabbit, cat, husky, and panda before landing on the fox, then built a full type system, button styles, and color palette.
04
The Solution
Interactive Prototype
The buddy-pairing flow, from interest survey to matched classroom activity.
05
Impact & Results
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06
Reflections
Inclusivity and integration aren't things you can solve with a single feature. The buddy system is a partial answer to a much bigger problem.
We went through a lot of ideas before landing on the buddy system as the core mechanic. Looking ahead, we'd want to expand beyond a single city, add features for parent involvement, give students a path to eventually meet their buddies in person, run actual user testing with elementary school students instead of relying on our own past experience, and integrate self-paced learning modules to match where the broader market is heading.