AnteaterEvents

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  Main Application Interface

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  Creating an event

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  Main interface on mobile

Inspiration

UCI students have a reputation for being antisocial and not going out much. While it may be that we're all introverts, I think part of it is not knowing where to go. We looked at places like zotspot and found them very inconvenient to be able to find out what's happening on campus. The search feature isn't that good, and unless you're a UCI student already familiar with campus, it can be confusing to figure out exactly where these events are. If you want to find out what clubs or students are doing too, you would have to go on social media and find their individual pages. We figured it should be way easier than that. So, we decided to bring it all together in one place.

What it does

AnteaterEvents lets people open an app and see everything thats happening on campus with a visual map and markers on it which when you tap, shows the details of the event. Users can also upload their own events by just selecting a point on the map and filling out the info. Easy as that! Users can then be a lot more selective with their search, they can go to specific days to find out whats happening a week or a month from now, they can also select categories when creating and searching for events. Then they can search for events by description or by title. Then there's an enhanced search, where users can use the Gemini AI to search for events specific to what exactly they are interested in.

How we built it

We built it using Django for the backend and React for the frontend. We used Supabase as a database and the Google Gemini API for AI searches. We also used Docker to containerize the backend and deployed it to render and deployed the frontend to render too.

Challenges we ran into

A lot. We tried using Firebase at the start but then realized it was more of a backend as a service and had difficulty setting it up. We wanted to try writing our own backend api so we just opted for Supabase to store data. Including the Gemini API caused our free-tier render instance to run out of memory, so we had to optimize the Docker container and how we were processing and loading in the API to reduce memory usage. Figuring out how to connect the frontend with the backend was also confusing as many of us had used APIs but never created one in a full-stack setup before.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Setting up a full working RESTful API that is deployed and able to work beyond localhost. Setting up a Docker successfully and making it run in a production-like environment. Setting up a full React frontend that not only looks nice, but is easy to use and navigate for users. Creating a full-stack app that allows users to interact using a non-localhost url with persistent data storage and AI searches to allow them to find custom events beyond just simple categories. Creating an app that solves an actual problem that we personally faced.

What we learned

We learned a lot about how the frontend structures its requests and how to design APIs. Learned how to design an app with a set of clear functional requirements. Learned how to configure databases with separate backend APIs and how to integrate outside APIs and libraries. How to deploy an app both on the frontend and backend. How to work with existing frontend/backend frameworks and expand upon them to create our own custom capabilities. How to design the frontend with users in mind for an easy to navigate experence.

What's next for AnteaterEvents

If the app is recieved well we might potentially expand on it and make it more public to users.

Built With

• django
• docker
• python
• react
• render
• typescript
• vite