Hoos Go!: A Gamified Mobile App for Exploring Grounds and Building Community at UVA; Treatment and Outcome Variability in Radial Head Fractures 5 views

In this thesis portfolio, the technical report and research paper both examine how technology interacts with human systems. While they operate in different domains, one in biomedical engineering and the other in social/mobile gaming technology, they both reveal how advancements in technology do not always result in predictable or standard outcomes. With developing Hoos Go! The goal was to create a technology that facilitated easy social interactions in a new environment, to help new students make friends and understand UVA’s grounds. But while designing and testing the app it became obvious that creating a platform for interaction did not guarantee social connection. The system’s effectiveness would depend on how users choose to interact with it, how intuitive and rewarding it is, and whether it could translate digital interactions into real world ones. We used these insights to develop a game that encouraged continuous social exploration deeply rooted into UVA’s campus, student life, and traditions, to maximize engagement and real world interaction. The development process of Hoos Go! showed us that creating a system that allows social interaction is not enough to create real world interactions. A much more focused approach that translates digital connections into living ones is necessary. This insight closely parallels the findings of the STS research paper which investigates how despite massive technological advancement in the past few decades, radial head fractures and complex elbow injury are treated in more varied ways than before, with even less transparency on recovery outlook. Using STS frameworks, the paper shows how treatment decisions are determined by complex systems of surgical tools, doctors, insurance companies, and other actors, rather than some specific and standardized protocol. At the same time, these systems become embedded in professional practice over time, and resist change. Together, these projects demonstrate how advancements in technology can have unpredictable outcomes, and sophistication often leads to greater complexity than before. In both cases, technology introduces new possibilities, but the outcome depends on how these possibilities are realized within a broader sociotechnical system. This synthesis shows that engineers cannot make broad assumptions as to how new and advanced technology will affect society, and if anything should often plan on a decrease in uniformity in areas of rapid advancement. This perspective emphasizes the importance of designing systems with variability and user behavior in mind, rather than trying to eliminate uncertainty.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Radial Head Fracture; Mobile App; Campus Tours; Biomedical Engineering; Computer Science

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Technical Advisor: Mark Sherriff STS Advisor: Travis Elliott Technical Team Members: Rory Kretzer, Amanda Kaminsky, Jessica Tierney, Mila Ranocha

English

All rights reserved by the author (no additional license for public reuse)

2026-05-08