The Next Step

The Next Step is a web app designed to help people reach whatever goals they have in life. Users receive a step-by-step process that will help them get from where they are to where they want to be.

Comment

Inspiration

We have both found that it can be very difficult to keep up with long term goals while balancing school. We wanted to make a way to help others to be able to keep track of those goals and make incremental progress, no matter how busy they may be.

What it does

The Next Step allows users to write a brief description of the goal they want to accomplish. It then provides a detailed step by step summary of how the user can accomplish that goal. Users can store and view multiple goals at a time and can remove them once they are completed.

How we built it

We utilized the SpringBoot framework to pair a Java backend with an Angular based frontend. In addition, we used Amazon DynamoDB Service to store our resources so that the data persists even after closing the app. We used a python script to interact with OpenAI API and generate the detailed guide that is displayed to users when they submit a goal.

Challenges we ran into

Working with DynamoDB proved difficult at first because it was a new experience for both of us. However, with some time and a lot of reading, we managed to figure out how to utilize this service in our project. We also had trouble implementing the OpenAI API in our project, which led to us creating a solution via the python script.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we managed to figure out DynamoDB, as neither of us had any experience with databases and it proved to be extremely useful for the project. We're also proud of the python script solution to the problems we were having with OpenAI, as it was unconventional but managed to bypass the problem. Making a full-stack web app that functions as intended is also an accomplishment that we don't take for granted.

What we learned

We learned how to use DynamoDB effectively, how to run a python script in the Java Runtime Environment, and how to use OpenAI API in python. Additionally, we were able to improve a lot of skills that we struggled with before, such as setting up the SpringBoot Application, using gradle in the backend, and using RESTful calls to tie it together.

What's next for The Next Step

The next step for The Next Step would be to implement profiles for different people and add functionality for logging in and out, which was a stretch goal of ours that we didn't quite have time to reach. Further in the future when we have collected a lot more data on usage of the app, we would like to implement machine learning to improve the results and tailor them to the user. This was something we wanted to do using the AWS tools, but simply didn't have enough data for it make a noticable difference.

Share this project:

Updates