Inspiration
As university students, we understand the challenges that come with transitioning from high school to post-secondary education. Many of us have experienced anxiety when moving from one semester to another due to the daunting course outlines and the many deadlines to meet. With AssignWise, a web application, our aim is to alleviate this stress.
What it does
AssignWise is an web platform that acts as a time management and task delegation hub for students. The Assignment Planner page allows students to upload any course outline, and our backend calls the OpenAI API to extract assignment names, dates, and weights. From there, the data is then processed before being presented to the user in an easily readable format. Also presented in the table is the estimated amount of time to be allocated to each assignment, helping students prioritize and plan accordingly.
How we built it
The front end platform was developed from the ground up, utilizing HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the BootStrap library. The back-end of the program uses Python for API calls and data processing, as well as a library called Flask for integration with the front end of the software.
Challenges we ran into
We initially planned to develop a mobile application. None of the team members had previous experience in app development and were willing to take on the new challenge together. Unfortunately, we spent the first 4 hours of the Hackathon attempting to develop this mobile app, but did not find any success. It was extremely challenging to scrap our initial project idea, but in the end it worked out well for us. Additionally, we did not have any experience in developing a full-stack project, and were advised to use Flask as our integration tool. Flask in itself posed many challenges for us to overcome because we were so unfamiliar with the framework and the idea of connecting the front end to the back. A lack of sleep also gave us challenges, hindering our productivity in the early hours of the morning.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
During the first hours of the Hackathon, we felt very discouraged, so we are very proud of the fact that we were able to develop a functioning tool that we see as useful for future and current post-secondary students. As a team, we were able to learn a new language (JavaScript), and successfully connect our backend to our front end for the first time in our post-secondary career. Learning how to utilize Flask successfully was a huge accomplishment for us. Additionally, we had never learned how to make calls to APIs, and we too were successful in leveraging the OpenAI API. There were many 'firsts' for us during the development of our project, which we are most proud of.
What we learned
We learned that we needed to be more realistic in the first part of the hackathon -- learning how to develop a mobile app in 24 hours would've been awesome but we were definitely a bit too ambitious with that idea. We learned the importance of communicating our goals and to each other, to make sure we have a good understanding of what exactly we wanted to accomplish from this Hackathon. During the hackathon, we also discovered the significance of adaptability. When we realized that our original plan was not feasible, we quickly adjusted our goals and strategies to make the most of the time we had left. This flexibility allowed us to salvage the hackathon and still make meaningful progress. Lastly, we learned that resilience is a valuable quality when faced with unexpected setbacks. Instead of being disheartened by our initial overambitious goals, we used the experience as a learning opportunity and continued to work towards our modified objectives. Teamwork makes the dream work!!
What's next for AssignWise
We have many plans for the future of AssignWise. Once we successfully extract data from PDFs, AssignWise will populate the Task Manager page with each assignment. This Kanban Board will be a central hub for students to track the progress of their assignments, offering a visual, organized way to manage their coursework efficiently. Our long-term goal is for universities to recognize AssignWise as a valuable resource for all students, both incoming and current. We envision it as the go-to web application for students, the first thing they see when they open their computers in the morning.
AssignWise will provide clarity and relief, helping students navigate their academic responsibilities with confidence. We see AssignWise as a solution that can benefit post-secondary schools worldwide. As we grow, we will continuously improve AssignWise, adapting it to meet the evolving needs of students and the requirements of different educational institutions. We'll integrate feedback from users to make the platform even more effective in alleviating the stress and challenges associated with managing coursework.
AssignWise could introduce features tailored to group projects, allowing students to create collaborative project boards. These boards will provide a space for teams to organize tasks, set deadlines, and track progress in a transparent and efficient manner.
Another future idea we had was that student feedback could be collected and brought forth to professors, say if an assignment takes longer than estimated for a majority of students, the professor could be notified in order to update the weight of the assignment in future versions of the course.
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