Inspiration
The shortage of blood is a serious problem that exists in our society. Many people die due to a mismatch of blood groups with the donor or even due to the lack of a proper donor. This inspired me to keep a database of the donors and keep a track of when they are available or not along with their contact information. The result is this project. It is built supporting a social cause. Back in my varsity, we have a large organization managing donor for patients all across the city. Although they manage their jobs very well, it is physically very tiring and sometimes they suffer mentally too. So, all these inspired me to take a digital approach to mitigate such sufferings.
What it does
The web app enables a user to register himself/herself and look at the available donors of blood groups. They can themselves contact them via the built-in email system of the application without relying on others. The app also shows when the donor last donated so that no confusion arises(a donor can donate only after 4 months of his/her previous donation) and thus lessens the hassle of both the involved parties.
How we built it
I built it using the Laravel framework of PHP at the backend along with MySQL for the database. Besides, HTML and Bootstrap were used for the frontend. While testing locally, the XAMPP control panel was used but we soon switched to Heroku deployment for a live experience.
Challenges we ran into
Some of the challenges I ran into while developing this project:
- Deploying a local project into the Heroku server.
- Connecting the database with the live server.
- Designing and managing database queries as I've no academic experience in database management until now.
- Sending emails to the donors and their related configuration.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I am proud of at least starting a project which might come in handy if developed on a large scale in the future and is also for a social good cause. Apart from this, I am overwhelmed to complete a project for the hackathon and deploy a live server on the Internet. I am happy to bring my thoughts into action like an email system, user authorization, etc.
What we learned
I learned the followings:
- Database management.
- Deploying a project into the internet.
- Connecting a database at the backend of a live server.
- Learn more about the Laravel framework and its built-in features.
- Enjoying a hackathon.
What's next for Blood Donation
I would love to develop its frontend by learning a frontend framework like React or Vue in the near future and give it an eye-catching look and also make it user-friendly. I also intend to use it within my circle as much as I can and give it a real meaning so that people can look at it whenever they require a blood group's donoor.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.