Comforix

The Comforix logo

Note to judges: We applied for the "best domain name" prize but Domain.com has yet to activate our account. The domain we registered is comforix.tech. Thank you for understanding, and sorry for the inconvenience!

Inspiration

We were inspired to make this site as most of our team members were stressed about many things in life including schoolwork, and one of our team members also wasn't feeling well. We thought that we weren’t the only ones having this issue, and that everyone should have someone that they can talk to. This inspired us to make Comforix - we want to provide everyone with a way to get support when they need it.

What it does

Comforix is a site which allows users experiencing similar or identical issues to support each other. Our site accomplishes this by asking users to select one or more issues that they’re currently facing during the signup process. The site will then search for other users facing similar issues and display users in a list. Users can also add a description containing details about the issue they’re facing, or just general information about them which will allow other users to decide if they’re the right person to talk with. After an interaction, every user can rate the person they talked with, which will help combat toxicity - those who have a low rating will be shown farther down the page. Our site does not collect any personal data - users sign up anonymously with only a username and a password. No emails, no phone numbers.

How we built it

We built this site using C#, ASP.NET, and Blazor. The server hosts an API which the client interacts with. We used SQL to store and access users’ account information (issues they’re facing, descriptions, and their reputation) and messages.

Challenges we ran into

Our largest challenge was collaborating with each other. Two of our teammates (Andrew and Chris) were online while the other two (Doris and Sharon) were in-person. The internet (and power outage) meant that we couldn’t communicate together and our leader (Chris). Another one of our challenges was getting the code to run successfully on all of our team member’s machines - team members often had issues getting the SDK installed correctly, and cloning/pushing to and from github would often fail. As for the actual coding, we face major challenges when it came to the completion of the buttons.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re really proud of the fact that we managed to get the live chat feature to work as none of us had done this before. We’re also proud of the UI, as it turned out much better than we expected, and we were all impressed by what we could get done when we put all our effort into something. Most importantly, we’re proud of the fact that we’ve made a platform which will benefit society as a whole - many people with physical and emotional issues have nobody to turn to, and we’re happy that our site can provide them with that somebody they need.

What we learned

During these 36 hours, we learned a lot about UI design, and we learned how to make an interface look clean and straightforward, guiding the user on the right path. We also learned a lot about APIs (the client interacts with the server using APIs) and SQL, which we used to store accounts and messages. This hackathon was also a great chance to hone existing skills including C# (backend), video editing (pitch), git, and the linux command line (to host our site on our server).

What's next for Comforix

Since we believe Comforix is a site which is crucial and much-needed in today’s society, we plan to keep running this site even after this hackathon. We plan to add new features which will allow users to more effectively filter users and find the most ideal person to talk to, all while preserving user privacy. We also hope to add a group chat feature where multiple people facing similar issues can come together as a whole and help each other get through hard times.