Pictofriends

Inspiration

The creation for this webapp was fueled by our desire to interact with our long-distance college friends! As a friend group that enjoys playing games, laughing, and being present with each other, just taking a second to text or click and send a picture didn’t feel meaningful enough. We wanted to create an application that allowed us to communicate in a more intentional and interactive way! We pulled some inspiration from a jackbox game as well called Tee KO. Although the game is simply drawing and writing text, we have so much fun playing with our friends and making inside jokes! We expanded on this idea to make it a shorter daily game where creativity meets connection, keeping you more than just “in touch”.

What it does

The website first asks a user to sign in or make an account The Feed page displays images created on the website The Draw page allows users to create a drawing and upload it to their feed

How we built it

We used Firebase as our database for images, users, friend groups, and more. To implement the UI, we learned how to use React to make a single-page application.

Challenges we ran into

We had to learn how to use React and Firebase for the first time throughout this hack. It was also, in general, our first time in a long time using JavaScript and CSS. It took much trial, error and research to even launch the website, then work out how the formatting worked. Alongside learning how to build a basic UI, we also had trouble interacting with the database. Working around permissions took up much of our time, and it took constant communication to keep up with how to manage the database in our code.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Learning firebase and react well enough to bring the idea in our head to life

What we learned

Patience and tenacity is key! It took a few hours for us to really get any progress done, after learning as much as we could about the tools we’d need. But each time we got over a hurdle—launching the website for the first time, switching pages, connecting to the database—our motivation to continue grew.

What's next for Pictofriends

We hope to add points and streaks, as well as a store system to buy more colors and incentivize people to play each day. We also hope to fully implement groups and friend invitations, as well as the guessing system.