Inspiration
The inspiration for this project was derived from our realization that there is no robust way to crowdfund a natural disaster to benefit the community. Because the community is struggling during this time, it is important to create a type of network that is able to help unite the community while being there for one another. Therefore, our program is centered around helping a community provide for each other by featuring a wall that includes items in demand by fellow neighbors.
What it does
This program features a wall where users are able to post their current needs and fellow community members are able to be alerted and have the option of fulfilling the request. While anything within our app's guideline's could be asked for, the intention of this feature was to help others who may be unable to purchase an important item due to most stores being closed. Furthermore, this application is mainly propelled by integrating with the Twitter API where the program can interact with community members via direct messaging. Additionally, users can alert other community members of incoming natural disasters by tweeting using a special hashtag. Lastly, this application is able to serve as a forum where users can interact with a built in map and alert other community members which stores may be out of fundamental items.
How we built it
We used Google's Firebase to run our back end where users were able to signup, login, data for items requested,hosting, etc. Additionally, our app was primarily built using Google's Flutter to run our front end on an Android app. To power our mapping dating with search functionality, we were able to access the Google Maps API through node.js. Additionally, all featuring involving Twitter were written in Python using an API wrapper.
Challenges we ran into
Coding the back-end with Firebase was more complicated than what we thought. In addition to this, some things where inherently more difficult due to our use of Flutter. Overall, a lot of time was lost due to encountering unique problems with Firebase that were difficult to completely solve.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Given that 3 out of 4 team members experienced their first hackathon this weekend, we are very happy with what we were able to produce. All of us learned something new, some of use learned Dart, others learned JavaScript, and we were all able to grow from trying to build this up. By experimenting in technologies we all were not used to, we strengthen our skill set while also learning fundamental team communication skills. Overall, we felt we learned more about programming this weekend than any other while also having a lot of fun.
What we learned
By trying to make the best application ever, our team did get lost in developing a lot of features rather than focusing on the core functionality. Therefore, it is better to focus in some main functionality first, rather than coming up with an idea to which we keep on adding features and end up not being able to accomplish. However, the skills we learned this weekend truly made it an experience to remember.
What's next for Power Together
For Power Together, we believe it is something that the community needs. By being able to relay information to those in your community about which stores are out of core necessity, everyone is able to save time and reduce their wasted gas emissions. Therefore, we also believe that this application can serve as a way to reduce our societal carbon footprint in a time where that may not be a top priority for many.
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