Aggie Hub

Log-in page
Welcome Page
Profile Building Page
Preferences - helps the algorithm cater your feed based on your interests
Events/Explore page personalised to users' preferences

Inspiration

The inspiration behind Aggie Hub stems from our own experiences as students navigating the bustling campus life at UC Davis. We observed firsthand the struggle many of our peers faced in filtering through the multitude of events to find those that truly resonated with their interests and passions. The overwhelming array of activities both on campus and in the surrounding Davis area often left students feeling lost in the sea of options. Additionally, we noticed the significant challenge clubs and organizations encountered in effectively advertising their events, resulting in low attendance and limited visibility. Motivated by these observations, we set out to create Aggie Hub, a solution designed to simplify event discovery for students and bridge the gap between clubs and their potential attendees. All of the events for students are filtered as per the their preferences and put in one centralized "for you" page. Our goal is to empower students to pursue their interests and find their community while ensuring that every event receives the attention and participation it deserves.

What it does

Aggie Hub is dedicated to connecting UC Davis students with events that match their interests, both on and near campus. Our app ensures personalized event recommendations by first authenticating students through their school email and password, confirming their status as UC Davis students. Upon login, students are prompted to answer a series of questions about their likes, hobbies, personality traits, major, and current classes. This information allows Aggie Hub to tailor event suggestions to each student's preferences and schedule. Additionally, the app provides a platform for both students and clubs to post events, with customizable filters to target the right audience. By facilitating this personalized approach, Aggie Hub fosters a vibrant campus community where students can easily discover and engage with events that resonate with them.

How we built it

To create Aggie Hub, we're using Swift for the frontend and Firebase for the backend. Swift ensures a smooth user experience, while Firebase provides a reliable infrastructure. Due to time constraints, we've focused on building a prototype using Justinmind for rapid iteration. This approach allows us to gather feedback and refine our ideas efficiently, moving us closer to our goal of revolutionizing event discovery for UC Davis students.

Challenges we ran into

Crafting an app to cater to the social needs of UC Davis students was a big task. We aimed to create a platform where students could easily connect with others who shared their interests and personalities, fostering genuine friendships. However, as we dove into development, we realized that our grand vision had to be scaled back due to time and resource limitations. We had to refocus our efforts on one core aspect: helping students find events and organizations on campus based on their interests. This shift required some tough decisions and careful planning to ensure our app could still make a meaningful impact. Despite the challenges, our team remained determined and innovative, pushing forward to create a solution that stays true to our original goal while adapting to the constraints we faced.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our accomplishment in pivoting our app's development journey. Transitioning from a broad, multi-feature concept to focusing on a specific task was a challenging. Despite the time constraints, we managed to streamline our vision and create a base prototype that exemplifies our core objective. We had to be adaptable, creative, and committed to delivering a valuable solution to UC Davis students.

What we learned

Our journey taught us some key lessons about teamwork. We learned that reaching our final prototype required us to face many challenges and make a lot of mistakes along the way. Each setback was a chance for us to learn and improve. We also realized the importance of being adaptable and realistic about our time constraints. We had to be practical about what we could achieve in the time we had. Moving forward, we know we need to strike a balance between our ambitions and what's feasible, staying flexible while keeping our project's limitations in mind.

What's next for Aggie Hub

Looking ahead, our next step for Aggie Hub is to bring our prototype example to life by building and deploying the app. We're excited to move from concept to reality and provide UC Davis students with a valuable tool for connecting with their community. In addition to our core feature of personalized event recommendations, we aim to enhance the app by incorporating features that leverage students' preferences and personality types to facilitate meaningful connections. We envision a platform where students can find and connect with others who share their interests and traits, fostering friendships. Furthermore, we plan to implement a scheduling feature that allows students to upload their schedules, enabling the app to suggest events based on their availability. By combining personalized recommendations with scheduling capabilities, we strive to make event discovery not only tailored but also practical and convenient for our users. With these exciting developments on the horizon, we're eager to continue our journey towards creating a vibrant and inclusive community on campus through Aggie Hub.