Improving a Live Childcare App: How Arizona State University Students Strengthen Sport Sitters for Families and Student-Athletes

Finding dependable childcare remains one of the most persistent challenges for working families across the USA, while college students often struggle to find flexible jobs that fit around demanding schedules. A startup called Sport Sitters addresses both problems at once, and a team of engineering students at Arizona State University is now playing a central role in making the platform faster, safer, and more scalable. Through the engineering capstone program at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, students are writing production code for a live childcare app that hundreds of families and student-athletes already rely on every day.

This article explains how Sport Sitters works, why the Arizona State University collaboration matters, and what the project reveals about preparing computer science students for careers in software engineering.

Why a Childcare App Built Around Student-Athletes Solves Two Problems at Once

Sport Sitters founder Meaghan Franks identified a practical overlap that many people had overlooked. Families need childcare providers who are energetic, trustworthy, and available during nontraditional hours. College athletes, meanwhile, need paid work that can adapt to practices, games, travel, and constantly shifting team schedules.

The platform connects these two groups. Parents book vetted student-athletes to provide childcare, and the athletes serve as active role models for children in the process. Franks observed how naturally athletes connected with kids through camps, clinics, outreach events, and postgame interactions, and she built a business around that connection.

There is a deliberate irony at the heart of the model, as Franks herself points out. Parents use a phone-based app to arrange time for their children that is largely free of screens.

“We’re having parents use their phones to get their kids away from phones and screens,” Franks says. “It’s bizarre, but that’s what we’re doing. We’re leveraging technology to create time without technology.”

Name, Image, and Likeness Opportunities for Every Athlete, Not Just the Headliners

The idea also grew out of changes in college athletics. Since the NCAA began allowing name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation, most high-value deals have flowed to athletes in high-profile sports or to those with large social media followings. Talented athletes in less visible sports often saw few opportunities.

Sport Sitters created an alternative path. Student-athletes can earn income by doing something many already do well: showing up for kids, keeping them engaged, and modeling the value of practice and persistence. The model extends earning opportunities to a broader group of athletes while giving families childcare that comes with built-in mentorship.

The company has grown to roughly 800 registered families and athletes, operates at five schools, and maintains a waiting list of 32 additional institutions. That growth created exactly the kind of technical demands that a young startup cannot always meet alone.

Inside the Arizona State University Engineering Capstone Program

Enter the capstone program at the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. Led by Associate Teaching Professor Steven Osburn, the program pairs student teams with industry partners to solve practical problems. Companies receive technical support from emerging engineers, and students gain something difficult to reproduce in a classroom: responsibility to real stakeholders.

Franks recognized the opportunity sitting essentially next door.

“I realized, wait a minute, we’re right next to this incredible school of engineering with so much talent,” Franks says. “How could I not give these students, who have so much drive and curiosity, the kind of real-world opportunity they can put on their resumes?”

A capstone team last spring rebuilt the first version of the Sport Sitters app, rewriting code and adding features for a platform that was already serving paying users. The current collaboration continues that work with two groups:

• Automation team: Computer science undergraduate Suhaib Ahmad Siddiqui and informatics major Porter Sweet began in June, focusing on automated outreach to athletes and parents to help Sport Sitters organize and engage its growing user base.
• Scalability and mobile team: Computer science undergraduates Rudheer Reddy Chintakuntla and Dhanush Koyi began in August, concentrating on scalability and mobile app feature development as the company prepares to expand beyond its early university markets.

Families and student-athletes who want to understand how the platform works can explore Sport Sitters directly to review availability, training requirements, and safety standards in their area. Have questions about whether this model fits your community? Write to us, and we can point you toward the right resources.

Learning Accountability: The Lesson of the $70 Email

One incident from the project illustrates the difference between a class assignment and production software better than any lecture could. Siddiqui and his teammates were building an automated notification system to alert athletes when they had been approved to work through the platform. Automation seemed like the right fix for a repetitive task.

Then the email went out. Not to one athlete, and not to a small test group. It went to everyone in the database.

The mistake cost Sport Sitters about $70 in extra email charges. The dollar amount was small. The lesson was not. Sport Sitters was not a mock app built for a grade. It was a live childcare app with real users, real payments, real babysitters, and real families depending on it.

“After that, we realized we were dealing with a lot more than school requirements and grades,” Siddiqui says. “There was money involved, and people’s lives were affected.”

This is precisely the experience the capstone program is designed to provide. In a typical course, the problem is defined in advance, the requirements are clear, and the consequence of failure is a lower grade. On a live platform, students must understand what the founder needs, translate those needs into technical requirements, and make changes carefully enough that the product keeps working for the people using it.

Testing Like It Matters, Because It Does

Chintakuntla says that responsibility changes how students approach every line of code.

“We need to think through everything, check it thoroughly, test it end to end, and stress it so that it doesn’t break,” he says.

That pressure is part of the education. Students are not only practicing coding skills. They are learning how software decisions affect users, business operations, and trust, a lesson many engineers do not encounter until well into their first jobs.

For Koyi, the technical challenges are part of what makes the project valuable. Because the app is still growing, its development processes are not yet as formalized as they might be at a large company. Students must therefore consider how features move from planning to implementation to testing.

“We have to be involved in every step of getting a new feature ready, from planning it to testing it,” Koyi says. “It’s challenging, but I think that experience is going to prepare us better for the real world.”

Why Trust Defines the Sport Sitters Childcare App

Automation and scalability matter, but they serve a more fundamental goal. Sport Sitters depends on trust. Families need to trust the people entering their homes. Athletes need clear pathways to training, approval, and bookings. The founder needs technology that supports both groups as the company grows.

Outreach automation, for example, is not simply about sending more messages. It is about helping Sport Sitters reach athletes who want flexible work while ensuring the platform maintains training, background checks, and safety expectations for families.

“I know Sport Sitters is unique compared to many other capstone projects because everything is live,” Franks says. “There are real credit cards. There are real children. There are parents that are leaving their homes.”

For families evaluating any childcare app in the USA, this emphasis on safety infrastructure is worth noting. Platforms that invest in verification, training, and transparent approval workflows give parents a clearer basis for confidence than informal arrangements ever can.

Shared Discipline: Where Engineers and Student-Athletes Meet

Franks sees a kinship between engineering students and athletes that is not immediately obvious. Both groups understand repetition, discipline, and persistence. Both know what it means to keep working when something fails on the first attempt.

“Coding and engineering require you to keep showing up, because things are always broken before they’re fixed,” Franks says. “It takes patience, curiosity, and determination to work through a problem again and again. I think that’s why these two groups complement each other so well.”

Osburn notes that this is also where the capstone model delivers its greatest value for both sides.

“Companies get technical support from students who bring curiosity, training, and new ideas,” he says. “The students gain experience solving problems that are not neatly packaged for them.”

What This Collaboration Means for Students, Families, and Student-Athletes

The Sport Sitters partnership at Arizona State University produces concrete benefits for everyone involved:

• For students: The project is more than a class requirement. It is a chance to shape a growing startup with clear community impact and to learn what software engineering feels like when the work has to survive outside the classroom.
• For families: The result is a childcare app that makes finding reliable, engaging providers easier, backed by students who test their work with unusual care because real people depend on it.
• For student-athletes: The platform is a flexible way to earn income and build community connections, independent of high-profile NIL deals.
• For the startup: The collaboration supplies the engineering talent needed to scale carefully while preserving the trust that makes the platform viable.

Advice for Prospective Engineering Students

For students considering computer science or informatics programs, the Sport Sitters project offers a useful benchmark. When evaluating universities in the USA, look for programs that connect coursework to live industry projects. Ask whether the curriculum includes a capstone with real partners, whether student teams own production features, and how the program handles the transition from academic requirements to stakeholder responsibility. Prospective students who want hands-on experience like this can review the engineering degree options at Arizona State University and submit their application today.

Share your own experiences with capstone programs or campus entrepreneurship in the comments below. Your perspective may help another student choose the right path.

Final Thoughts on the Sport Sitters and Arizona State University Partnership

Sport Sitters demonstrates that a well-designed childcare app can address several needs simultaneously: parents gain trustworthy providers, student-athletes gain flexible income, and children gain active role models. The engineering students at Arizona State University gain something equally valuable, which is the experience of building software where mistakes carry real costs and successes deliver real value.

As the platform expands beyond its first five schools, the collaboration between the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and the Sport Sitters team stands as a practical example of what university-industry partnership can accomplish. Families across the USA get better tools. Athletes get opportunity. And the next generation of engineers gets an education that no simulated project could provide.

Interested in learning more about innovative education models, student entrepreneurship, or engineering programs at Arizona State University? Explore our related articles for further reading, or reach out with your questions. We are happy to help you find the information you need.