Inspiration
With COVID-19 restricting us from going outside and hanging out with friends, times can be tough. In order to keep our spirits up high, our friend group sends heartwarming photos from Reddit's r/aww to each other. The idea of using cute animals as a way of relieving stress is a topic that is studied commonly (like this article https://www.verywellmind.com/stress-relieving-benefits-of-watching-cute-animal-videos-4150074). We wanted to lift other people's moods using our web application!
What it does
We created a web application that allows a user to create an account. Once the user logs in, they are presented with a dashboard that displays a cute cat image, an inspirational quote, a button that allows users to mark their mood at the moment, and a graph that displays the last 7 moods the user has marked. This allows the user to track their mood as well as be happier over time as they see a cat photo to brighten their day!
How we built it
We built the backend using Python. We use the Flask framework to connect the Python backend to the HTML/JavaScript/Bootstrap frontend. In order to get the accounts and user data saved, we used an SQLite database to store the information. In order to get the cat images, we made calls to the "The Cat API". In order to get the inspirational quotes, we made calls to the "Forismatic API".
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenge we ran into was getting the web application to look the way we wanted. Since none of us had any experience in frontend development, we had to learn HTML, Javascript, and Bootstrap in the event.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We were proud of learning HTML, Javascript, and Bootstrap during the event. We were also proud of getting the flask to work despite some issues we had when working with it. We were super excited when we got the database to work since it allowed user creation and user functions!
What we learned
We learned about the amount of work it took to create a web application, specifically the frontend development needed to get the website looking the way we imaged it to. We had a lot of fun learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Bootstrap since it was something none of us had experience with.
What's next for C.A.T
There are many features that we want to implement for C.A.T in the future! Some of those features are email validation, graph variation (in terms of more points and possibly including a time factor), and connecting the web app to an API that sends SMS to users' phones so that they could receive a reminder to have a great day!
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.