UNC Lost and Found

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Inspiration

We understand the anxiety and fear of losing something but having no idea where to find it. This website partially serves to alleviate that fear and anxiety by allowing users who found the lost items and users who lost items to work together, allowing the items to get back to who they belong to.

What it does

This website takes input from people who lost items and posts them on the website so that others can contact them if the item is found. After the items have been retrieved, the posts can be removed so that they no longer show up on the website.

How we built it

We built the website using HTML, CSS, and Javascript using Replit to work on the project together. There are functionalities in the buttons so that the website records the input and displays them on the website. There are also buttons that resolve lost items after they have been retrieved by their respective owners. We also utlized the Google Places Autocomplete API to make it easier for users to add the last known location of their items.

Challenges we ran into

Initially, we could not get the data input to properly show up on the website because somewhere in the variable declaration we mislinked the identifiers so that the correct data is not transported to the correct field. We also could not get the Google Place autocomplete to work while working with API keys.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Most of the team is not familiar with HTML, CSS, and Javascript, but we managed to set up a website with the functions that we intended to achieve. We are very proud that we managed to make the Google location autocomplete work and this is our first experience using an API.

What we learned

We learned to work together as a team and focus on different tasks or components of the project so that our progress is expansive. We learned to dissect big problems into smaller problems. Furthermore, we deepened our understanding of the web development processes and how HTML, CSS, and Javascript work together.

What's next for UNC Lost and Found

Currently, our website stores the data on local storage. In the future, we plan to create a backend so that the data is stored in a database and displayed for all users who visit the website. Also, we will find ways to decorate the website so that it is more aesthetically pleasing. Also, we want to make sure only the appropriate users get to use the delete function on the website by adding a login system in conjunction with the database.