Building a

brighter future

Education made accessible & fun with S2F

CLIENT

Start2Finish

EXPERTISE

Product Research & Strategy

Design & Develop a New Product

COMPONENTS

Custom web app

CAPABILITIES

Discovery

UX/UI design

Web

UX research

Back-end engineering

In partnership with TTT Studios, Start2Finish, a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational support for at-risk children, created Brainworx!, a custom web portal delivering positive screen time, social-emotional learning, and community building to after-school programs nationwide.

The project offers students a charming and user-friendly digital experience, empowering them to explore their potential, connect with mentors and peers, and develop a lifelong love for learning.

a black background with a green turtle pattern

For 21 years, Start2Finish has been dedicated to addressing systemic barriers in education, breaking the cycle of poverty in the process. Limited access to quality resources disproportionately affects children, hindering personal and socioeconomic advancement, and impacting academic performance, opportunities for higher education, and future career prospects.

Recognizing the need to address education poverty head-on, Start2Finish has worked tirelessly to provide ongoing educational support to underserved communities. By breaking down barriers, offering resources, and fostering positive learning experiences, Start2Finish empowers children with the tools and opportunities they need to achieve their full potential.

a row of chairs with masks on them in a classroom

a little girl wearing a mask and holding a book

A meaningful challenge

In 2020, the global pandemic worsened educational poverty, severely impacting children’s access to education, particularly in underserved communities. As in-person activities abruptly ceased, Start2Finish realized they needed to digitize their services, ensuring consistency for the children they support.

Grabbing and maintaining a child’s attention can be tricky, so Start2Finish knew they would need to get creative when transitioning their after-school programming from an in-person to an online setting. They needed a partner to empathize with the students' needs and challenges, transforming their idea into a digital reality.

Kicking off the project, Discovery sessions were crucial to begin formulating a blueprint for Start2Finish’s digital platform. Understanding the problem and mapping user journeys helped uncover underlying needs and platform requirements to ensure the outcome was high-quality and engaging, all while being delivered before the school term started.

The team determined that harnessing tools and templates would be crucial to efficiently delivering a high-quality product on time and within budget. By maximizing available resources, the team significantly reduced development time and allocated resources to thinking about what would excite kids about learning on this platform.

Enter gamification

Our team crafted a whimsical but functional design that featured a leaderboard and a message board, leveraging animations and fun avatars to foster interaction among students and coaches.

Ultimately, the team delivered Start2Finish’s Brainworx platform on schedule, going above and beyond the initial specifications to benefit quality children’s education in Canada. By creating a user-friendly, lightweight, fun, and highly responsive solution, TTT Studios supported Start2Finish’s vision for a better and more inclusive future for Canadian students.

a little girl sitting at a table with a tablet

“We highly valued the team’s ability to stick to timelines and be conscious about the budget. We appreciated their honesty when we shared our wish list. They would guide us through the ones we needed and could afford. They helped find workarounds to reduce the expense so that we could add even more features.”

Anna Giebsrecht

Regional Manager and Virtual Programs Coordinator

a red finish sign sitting on top of a checkered table

71%

Growth in Junior Coach Program enrollment (Grades 7 to 8)

2,000

Students enrolled in Online Programs by December 2022

13%

Growth in student engagement from fall 2021 to fall 2022

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