OpenBnB

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Why OpenBnB? + About
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Inspiration

Not only did the recent hurricane Milton displace millions of Floridians, disasters like this happen every single day to people around the globe. With these types of crises becoming more and more of an issue, we wondered how we could possibly alleviate some of the negative effects that come with evacuation.

What it does

OpenBNB is a web platform connecting evacuees displaced by natural disasters with hosts offering temporary housing. Unlike traditional evacuation shelters, where being surrounded by other stressed and displaced people can compound psychological strain, OpenBNB provides a calmer, more personal environment for evacuees. By enabling people to list their homes as safe havens or find shelter in times of crisis, OpenBNB fosters a community-driven approach to compassionate and accessible housing when it’s needed most.

How we built it

First, we obtained our .tech domain using get.tech. We drew up some Figma sketches for what we wanted our user interface to look like, and began actually creating the website. Some of us worked on the frontend, building it using Next.js, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and TypeScript, continuously testing the website features and how it worked. Some of us worked on the backend, implementing an authentication feature and user database using Firebase.

Challenges we ran into

The Firebase authentication proved to be one of the biggest challenges posed to us. At times, the service would simply cease to function, with no other changes to the project being made.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of the website and how it looks and functions -- we feel that it is easily usable for someone actually seeking a home, and that it provides valuable information as to why OpenBnB is a potentially very helpful service.

What we learned

We learned more about authenticating with Google, and several of us highly improved our technical skills and knowledge involving Next.js, website debugging, and TypeScript.