Brush.ly

Inspiration

There are always a ton of distractions online. People frequently use social media such as Instagram to present their artwork to others and also gain criticism for self-improvement. However, these apps are addicting. People are constantly distracted and side-tracked by the intensity of social media, falling into cycles of scrolling.

What it does

We developed a web-based application called Brush.ly. It has been tailored for smaller artists and reduces distractions so they can gain more traction and interactions. We do not incorporate followers, reducing the pressure of popularity and the power imbalance of celebrities. We have anonymous likes, facilitating a more comfortable environment of unbiased review. We also separate posting and viewing art into different accounts. This makes sure people enter the application with the proper intent and do not get distracted.

How we built it

We used a custom local database and Python Flask to route a web application.

We originally used a React JS backend and a Firebase database, but we switched out due to issues mentioned in the next section.

Challenges we ran into

We had difficulty working with Firebase to store our posts and data. The documentation for React JS was very poorly written. Because of this, we switched the entire application into python Flask and used a custom local database which was more efficient and quick.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

None of us had ever formally done Python flask or React JS web development ever in the past. Because of this, we had a hard but priceless, valuable, and entertainingly difficult learning curve with the three softwares.

What we learned

We learned about time management and better communication skills. We learned to treat our partners mistakes with respect. We learned a lot more about python flask, React JS, and Firebase web development which will serve us very well in the future.