Microsprint 3 – Week 16/08/2026 - 22/08/2026

Brainstorming process

To generate a wide set of solutions, we started with open brainstorming session covering the four main problems identified in MS2: Wellness Made Fun, Free Time Matching at U, University Gastronomic Offer, and Emergency React. This process was inspired by the information gathered from user journey maps, student interviews, and our personal experiences as 4th year undergraduate students.

We focused on solving key pain points such as friction during gap hours, difficulty coordinating schedules with friends, lack of affordable nearby food options, and campus safety concerns.

The generated ideas addressed each problem area mainly consisted of:

Wellness Made Fun focused on gamifying healthy habits on campus through healthy habit tracking, posture check reminders, water intake tracking, and meditation sessions for exam stress relief.

Free Time Matching at U centered on social connectivity and free time coordination using shared availability calendars, central meetup point generators, and live campus friend maps.

University Gastronomic Offer aimed at improving food discovery and saving students money through filtered restaurant search, cafeteria queue trackers, student meal deals, and food bingo.

Emergency React focused on student safety and quick assistance with one tap SOS alerts, real time campus hazard reporting, quick first-aid maps, and trusted emergency contacts pings.

During our review, we identified strong relations between Free Time Matching at U and University Gastronomic Offer as both areas directly address student behavior during their free time between classes, where students struggle to coordinate free time and decide where to eat according to their necessities. Because of this, we merged these two categories into a single problem and deleted less relevant sticky notes. This final list formed our main selection of ideas for the next convergence phase.

Decision process

As it was just said, after brainstorming solutions for the four original problems, Wellness Made Fun, Free Time Matching at U, University Gastronomic Offer, and Emergency React, the team reviewed the ideas generated for each problem and decided that Free Time Matching at U and University Gastronomic Offer were the two areas that interested us the most and that could work well together. As Both are related to how students use the gaps between classes students may have free time but not know what to do, who is available, or where they could go to eat, we combined these two problems into one general direction focused on helping students make better use of their free periods. This combination marked the beginning of the convergence process, as we reduced the original problem space and focused on a single shared direction.

As part of the convergence process, each team member received five votes, represented by a different colored star, and used them to vote for the ideas they considered most valuable.

We then analyzed all the proposed ideas using the four categories presented in class: The Rational Choice, The Most Likely to Delight, The Darling, and The Long Shot. The ideas that received at least two votes were placed in The Darling, since they showed the strongest support among the team. The remaining ideas were placed in the other categories after discussing what each idea proposed, its possible value, and what its implementation would involve.

After organizing and comparing the alternatives, the team continued refining the ideas from the different categories. Although the ideas in The Darling had strong support during the voting process, we also decided to focus especially on The Rational Choice, since many of the features in this category represent essential parts of the application and removing them would leave out an important part of the proposed experience. As a conclusion of the process, we selected Free Time Matching at U and University Gastronomic Offer as the two main themes of our solution. These themes were combined to create a proposal focused on helping students make better use of their gaps between classes, both by finding activities and people to spend time with and by discovering food options around the university.

Empathy maps

Empathy Map 1 - Zair (By Juan Sebastián Ávila Nivia)

Empathy Map 2 - Juan Jose (By Tomas Hernandez)

Empathy Map 3 - Paula (By Martín Leschhorn)

Empathy Map 4 - Mateo Vargas (By Sebastian Vargas )

Empathy Map 5 - Santiago Bernal (By Alejandra Sanabria)

Personas

After analyzing the empathy maps, we found two personas who are similar but with different objetive's and different ways of acting when they have free time between classes, as shown below.

Persona 1:

Juan Hernschhorn is a 20–21-year-old Engineering student at Universidad de los Andes. He has a fragmented and constantly changing academic schedule, which means he often has to decide what to do with the limited time between classes. His smartphone is his main way of communication, organization and search of information. He wants to make better use of his time on campus but lacks clear information abaout his available time, activities, and food options, which often leads to last minute decisions.

Persona 2:

Jhayzon is a 20–23-year-old university student, he cares a lot on his academic responsabilities and often uses the time between clases to complete assignments or study. Even though he values excercise, rest and his personal well being, when the workload increases, this are usually the first to be sacrificed. He relies upon his smartphone, laptop and other university platforms to stay organized and manage his academic experience, thus making a challenge finding a balance between keeping up with his studies and making time for his other activites, like spending time with Friends.

Solution description

Our solution is a mobile app designed to help university students make better use of the free time they have between classes. Students often have one or more free hours during the day, but they may not know what to do with that time, especially when they have to search through different platforms to find activities, restaurants, events, or places to visit, our goal is to bring these possibilities together in one place and make it easier to decide how to spend that free time.

The app would allow users to indicate or connect their university schedule so they can identify their available time. Based on the amount of free time, their location, preferences, and interests, the app would show different options that fit their schedule, for example, a student with a two-hour gap could find nearby restaurants for lunch, activities that can be completed within that time, events happening nearby, places to visit, or other plans that fit before their next class.

The app would also include specific tools to make planning these activities easier, for example, users could search and filter restaurants by price, distance, type of food, or available time, explore activities and events based on their interests, and save places or plans they would like to try later, it could also help users compare different options and choose one based on the time they have available. This would reduce the need to switch between different apps or websites just to decide what to do.

Another important part of the solution would be the social aspect, users could see when their friends are available and find overlapping free time to make plans together, for example, if several friends have a two-hour gap at the same time, the app could help them find a restaurant or activity that works for everyone. The app could also allow students to discover other people who are interested in the same activities and have similar schedules, giving them the possibility of meeting new people and joining plans outside their usual friend group.