Inspiration
In 2017, Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey affected millions of people. Thousands of volunteers from throughout the U.S. traveled to affected areas to help affected victims. This is important because people are usually faster responders than either the government or non-profit organizations. We created Beacon to help volunteers aid those people in need by providing them with necessary supplies.
What it does
It connects victims of natural disasters with volunteers who seek to aid them.
How we built it
The Beacon mobile application is built with React Native. Using the Axios HTTP library the mobile app is able to perform HTTP requests in order to store user data in the backend. For the backend, Beacon uses Express.JS to establish routes (api endpoints) to retrieve data from the client and store that data into our database. For our database we used MongoDB. Our database is hosted on the cloud database service, mLab. Beacon also has a website that uses the Google Maps API and performs HTTP requests to the backend. The Beacon Website is hosted on GitHub Pages.
Challenges we ran into
We were challenged by using express-node.js and mongodb to set up a server to connect our website with its mobile application.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We have created both an app for mobile device and a responsive web application.
What we learned
We learned how to approach and collaborate on a project which addresses a serious problem and also how to effectively distribute work to finish our project within a specified timeframe. How to use new frameworks, languages, and making an API server (Node Package Manager, Node, Javascript, MongoDB, React Native). Mobile and Web development.
What's next for Beacon
We want to allow users to request specific items, establish drop off points for volunteers to send care packages to victims, and use government data to locate shelters nearest to the victims.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.