AggieStart

AggieStart - where tradition meets transformation

Here at Texas A&M University, we noticed that although programs like The Meloy Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Aggies Invent, and McFerrin Center exist, there lacks a streamlined way to integrate Engineers and Entrepreneurs together. Due to a reason for that being the huge separation between Mays Business School and Zachry Engineering Education Complex, we wanted to create a "bridge" that could solve this separation and promote innovation, which is where AggieStart comes in.

The main purpose of AggieStart is to offer a way for entrepreneurs and engineers to be able to connect in a simplified manner so startups can be born. AggieStart is an application through which users can create their profile aligned towards their interests and passions. Then, users can browse popular startup ideas, connect with people of different engineering/business majors based on their project criteria, and also book appointments with their connections to get started on their startups. Users can also access their profile section where they can view their current projects, upcoming coffee chats, and also recent friend requests. Overall, AggieStart works by offering a very user-friendly and efficient software through which engineers and entrepreneurs can connect and turn their ideas into a reality.

AggieStart was created mainly using Figma. Our software consists of 10+ subpages all concurrently wired in on the backend allowing for streamlined use. We centered the application towards Texas A&M Students mainly through our entire app concept to bridge entrepreneurs and engineers but also through the core aggie branding by using aggie colors. We also used ClipChamp to merge our audio recordings along with a PowerPoint into a background video player.

Although the result of AggieStart met our expectations, it wasn't easy, and we ran into various different challenges that required all of our team to work together to solve. Towards the beginning, we struggled to incorporate the wiring feature in Figma efficiently. It was also hard changing the transitions between pages, but we were able to figure that out through tutorials. We also struggled deciding what features to showcase as a label and what to cut, and this was most definitely our hardest challenge because features are the background of any application and knowing what to include is extremely important. By working as a team and researching what is needed and what isn't we were able to come to a conclusion.

We're proud of creating the whole design in general, but when it comes to specific, we want to give a pat on our backs for the creation of the idea in the first place. We truly believe our idea is distinguished and unique as we believe nothing like AggieStart exists at TAMU and it is time to grow the startup culture here as well. We're also proud of having mastered Figma and having designed a very sleek and user-friendly application design that is TAMU branded.

Throughout this design, we learned that when designing, it is important to think in the perspective of the user as it helps to set the foundation for the rest of the design. We also learned that thinking like a front-end developer is very important when it comes to design although there is no code involved.

In the future, we plan on actually developing and implementing AggieStart. We plan to use python and node.js for the backend development and react for the frontend. We are truly inspired to turn this idea into a reality by developing the application and publishing it for Texas A&M Students.