Inspiration
As we were attempting to come up with ideas to work at during Hack TJ 5.0, we were also attending the different workshops available. The technologies shown by the different workshops were very interesting to hear about and inspired our team to come up with many unique ideas for a potential application. Specifically we were inspired by Phone2Action’s mission to promote civic responsibility within the community. We decided to take our own spin on this and also utilize the resources provided by the other mentors. Considering the feasibility in the given time period of the hackathon and our interest in the topic, we were able to narrow down our initial ideas to one we are very proud to present to you, Don’t Hate… Donate!
What it does
Our applications provides a centralized and convenient way to provide users with certified food and clothing donation centers, as well as with locations for sell-fulfilling volunteering. Appealing many users with its convenience, the Don’t Hate… Donate! application provides the closest locations from TJ for food donation, clothing donation, and volunteering opportunities. By accommodating these different aspects within one app, it makes it even easier for members of the community to give back.
How we built it
We used our collective knowledge of Java and built the application on jGrasp. From the knowledge we gained from the workshops and by talking with the mentors, we were able to access the different directions that we could take the app. After we finalized the different panels and the content of the app, we used graphical user interface components such as panel, frame, labels, and buttons to create an application that provides all the necessities to reach our goal.
Challenges we ran into
One challenge that we ran into includes accessing whether or not an idea was feasible given the time of this hackathon. While these unique ideas would have been very interesting to pursue, we needed to also take into consideration the time constraint of the hackathon. Given this, we were able to initially explore a variety of different ideas, but pursued the one that was very interesting to us, addressed issues brought up by sponsors, as well as one that was challenging and doable for us to implement at this hackathon. Another area that troubled us was the initial use of Android Studio, since it was a new program for us. Due to this, we decided to use jGrasp, a program that we were more familiar with using.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of our accomplishment of successfully developing a mobile app with java using the jGrasp software. We are also proud that we were able to develop an app that will be beneficial to the community.
What we learned
We learned a great deal from our exposure with Android Studio. Along with this, we were able to learn about the different technologies in the workshops, which was very helpful for our application.
What's next for Don't Hate… Donate!
Due to our 23 hour time constraint, we were not able to effectively implement all the different aspects of the application that we invision. With additional work and mentorship from industry professionals, we hope to incorporate graphic mapping technologies, the availability from a wider range of users, and a more interactive aspect to the application.
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