Only a few years after its initial iteration, The University of West Florida’s Department of Athletics has launched an updated version of the “Argo Armada” app.

“The whole idea of the original app was to try and engage students,” Dakota Lee, Director of Athletic Marketing and Ticketing, said. “The difference from that app to this app is that this is a more inclusive app, available to alumni, boosters and students especially. Our main goal is to engage with students, but it is also a one-stop place for everything Argo athletics.”

The development of this app began in April and continued through November of this year. The developer’s main goal was to improve overall functionality from the first “Argo Armada” app.

“We really just wanted something that was more user friendly,” Lee said. “Our contract was expiring, so we decided to go all-in on this one to create an app that’s available for everybody who loves UWF. The idea with this app is to engage community members who really haven’t been a part of UWF.” 

Features of the new app include Argo athletics stats, schedules, promotions and giveaways. Student workers and graduate assistants were an integral part of developing this app.

“The functionality and capability of this app being able to relate to multiple UWF segments are what we are most excited about,” Lee said. “Overall, it was a team collaboration in our department for sure.”

The new app is linked to all things Argo athletics, including various social media accounts within the athletics department. This contributes to the developer’s goal of being a one-stop place for all that is happening in UWF athletics.

“This app is really just a way to bring every athletic program and department we have together,” Lee said. “Hopefully, this will spill over to the rest of the university, and we can partner with other events across campus.”

Despite all that was happening with COVID-19, faculty and staff were still able to conduct meetings while developing this app. These meetings were often limited capacity or done remotely.

“Every week we would meet with the company helping us develop the app to go over how the proof of our app was going,” Lee said. “We had a few students helping us out, although it probably would’ve been more if we weren’t dealing with COVID restrictions, but we were happy to get some feedback from our student-athletes, coaches and administrators.”

In addition to being a one-stop place for all things Argo athletics, the revamped “Argo Armada” app can send alerts to specific groups of users depending on their affiliation with the university. In the past, alerts would be sent to all users, so this improves the overall functionality of the app.

Since the release of the new “Argo Armada” app on Dec. 1, the app has received over 300 downloads. The number of downloads is expecting to increase once athletics are back in full swing.

“We’re really excited about the number of downloads we’ve had so far,” Lee said. “I think once we get to the middle of our sporting seasons, we can certainly expect a higher number of downloads. We want to encourage people to download it, and we hope that it is a useful tool to stay up to date with our coaches, fans and student-athletes.”

“Argo Armada” is free and available to download on all Apple and Android devices. For more information about the “Argo Armada” app, please contact the UWF Athletics Marketing Office at [email protected].