Four free apps built by a dad on the island of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands — for his own family, then shared with yours. No ads. No tracking cookies. No kid data collected. No catch.
Brian Louden needed a way to teach his kids to call 911. Then he needed a chore tracker — a way to award and control screen time without punishing kids. That seemed useful for teachers in classrooms too. Then his son storyboarded a video he wanted help filming — and did it so well that Brian built an app to organize it. He kept building, and kept sharing. Why keep something that helps your family to yourself?
91% of children can't successfully complete a 911 call on their own. Brian's kids had no way to practice realistically. As a former paramedic instructor, he knew this mattered — not in an abstract "good to know" way, but in a way that could save a life.
Nothing on the market simulated the real experience. So he built it. BraveCall uses actual dispatcher scripts, a bandpass audio filter that mimics real radio quality, and three dispatcher tones (Calm, Warm, Firm) so kids experience different communication styles. Parents can act as the live dispatcher using guided prompts on their own device, or kids can practice solo with pre-recorded dispatcher voices. Either way — it feels real, because the scripts are real.
No scores. No grades. No failure states. A child who picks up the phone and tries is already succeeding. The app never tells a kid they did it "wrong" — it builds confidence through repetition and familiarity. Every session ends with encouragement, never evaluation.
No account needed. No data stored. The child's device never connects to any server — it only communicates with the parent's device on the same local connection. Practice mode with pre-recorded voices works on a single device.
Shows & Chores grew from a system Brian's family already used: one show — or 30 minutes of tablet or games — for one chore. Simple. Then the chore list grew. The kids grew. Tracking the numbers got foggy. Who did what? Who's owed what? The napkin math wasn't cutting it.
The app started as exactly that — a single show and a single chore. But families are complicated. A movie for three chores? Build it in. The kids are old enough for an allowance? Tie it to the chores as an option. Savings goals, loans, choices, awards for cooperation or self-starting — all locked into a simple tracker to keep the parents and the kids honest.
It got complicated, because families are complicated. But the whole point was to decrease complications — so the app grows with your needs, as simple or as complex as your family requires.
"2 of 4 chores done" — not "You still have 2 chores left." Every piece of copy in this app frames progress positively. There are no streaks that break, no progress bars that reset, no disappointed sounds. Green means done, gray means pending. Red is never used for "incomplete" — only for errors and danger states.
Three modes grow with your kids: Screen Time Only (can't read yet — emoji-based, basic numbers help but parents can bridge it), Cash + Screen Time (needs to read simple numbers and words), and Cash Only (mathematics and reading). The kid dashboard is read-only — kids see what they've earned, but can't modify or game the system. A separate Family dashboard lets grandparents, aunts, uncles, or anyone else cheer them on from the outside.
Try the full demo without creating an account. Everything works — it just doesn't save. Start simple with one show and one chore. Add complexity when your family needs it.
Brian was chatting with his kids' teachers at a school coffee morning. The discussion was screen time. He mentioned how his family handled it and that he'd built an app to track it. He wanted their feedback.
Before he got the feedback, he realized the app already had something useful for teachers built inside it — so he decided to pull it out into its own tool. What started as little more than tracking classroom goals with a positive attitude turned into a ground-up build. Laws in. School authorization in. DPAs in. The positive reinforcement philosophy stayed — everything else was redesigned for classrooms from day one.
Teachers see everyone. Students see only themselves and class-wide totals. There are no leaderboards comparing students. The classroom goal (like Pizza Friday at 75%) is collaborative — the whole class earns it together.
School-level authorization comes first. No teacher can sign up on their own. A school administrator must authorize the account. This isn't a signup wall — it's a safeguard. Student data processing requires a signed Data Processing Agreement (DPA) before any information enters the system.
The student view is read-only and requires no login. Students access their dashboard through a teacher-generated link. No student accounts, no passwords, no email addresses. The app collects the absolute minimum data needed to function.
Teachers see everyone. Students see only themselves and class-wide totals. Home data and school data never mix — separate app, separate database, separate everything.
Brian's kids watch him and their mother make videos and want to be part of it. She's a stage and movie actress alongside her professional career. Brian has his own history of filmmaking, television, and video production. So far every family project had been created on the spot — a play session more than a fleshed-out idea.
His son already excelled at book writing and planning, but they needed to push that to video. The answer was storyboarding — put down your thoughts as simple progressive images. His son's answer was to dig in and ask questions about the process until he was making real scenes. Each one depicted camera angles, major action points, props, characters, basic dialogue.
Brian realized he had the experience and expertise to organize those thoughts into real production documents. Once they were organized, he had the tool done and wanted to share it. Working on stories, he discovered he'd built a very productive one-trick pony that served a professional filmmaker as well as it served a father.
Three roles control everything. The Director (usually the kid) owns the creative vision. The Producer (usually a parent) handles logistics, approvals, and permissions. The Audience (siblings, grandparents) gets a read-only view. 15 permission toggles let parents fine-tune exactly what each role can see and do.
The app is a creative tool, not a content platform. SceneSheet doesn't suggest stories, auto-generate content, or replace the kid's imagination — it structures what the kid already created into a format the family can use. The kid's creativity drives the project. The app just organizes it into something filmable.
Kid draws it, parent photographs it, the app builds the production documents. Works for a family movie night and works for a real shoot. The kid's imagination is the engine — the app just gives it structure.