BrainChain

Inspiration

We were inspired by peer-learning instructional methods and the ease at which crypto streamlines transactions. Putting the two ideas together, we decided to create a platform for students that could implement the concept of peer learning and provide students with an additional method of funding their education.

What it does

Brain Chain is a subscription-based blockchain service tailored for students who want to share their lecture notes and documentation. Rather than paying for specific content, users subscribe directly to the creator of the notes, which provides a monetary value for students to be more engaged and contribute to academia. A user earns money when another user subscribes to them. The Blockchain stores all subscription data and access control, and IPFS stores the uploaded files.

How we built it

We used Python, Web3.py, and Ganache to handle our back end. We used Flask, HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap to build the front end. We used Metamask for login, the Ethereum Blockchain Network for subscriptions, and IPFS for decentralized file storage.

Challenges we ran into

We tried to use ipfshttpclient python library in the first place, but the library ipfshttpclient did not support the newer version of the ipfs. We installed the older version, but the older version could not be run because the repo version was not supported. Then, we figured out another way to interact with ipfs, which was using json and requests python library and directly interact with ipfs with them.

Another challenge was to find a way to deploy the project. We found out firebase was not an ideal choice for our flask app because it will not be static.

Lastly, web 3.0 poor compatibility with Metamask made signing transactions difficult. We had no prior experience creating Smart Contracts so it was rather time-consuming.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of implementing a login system and file upload/download features.

With no previous experience in Blockchain or IPFS development, we are proud we were able to quickly research and figure out how to use them.

What we learned

We learned how Blockchain, IPFS, and Smart contracts worked.

Also, we learned that Firebase will not be ideal to host our web application because our web application is not static.

What's next for Brain Chain

We need to add more user-customizable features.

Built With

bootstrap
css
flask
html
ipfs
json
metamask
moralis
python
web3

Submitted to

Web3Apps

Created by

I worked on the back-end, specifically on the file download/upload feature using ipfs. I used requests and json python libraries to directly interact with ipfs since ipfshttpclient python library was no longer supported by ipfs.

Han Lee
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I worked on the front end - mainly planning the layout. At first we wanted to go with a premade template, but it proved to be rather challenging- I spent a lot of time trying to understand the templates css- which was well organized, but lengthy- and not written in bootstrap, which is what i've gotten more used to using. This got thrown away due to time constraints, and we went with developing a new simplistic UI using bootstrap. For that I worked on some of the pop-up menus.
During the project I learned how to navigate through larger project files, debug with Event Listener, use ubuntu as a virtual machine with WSL, work with JavaScript modals & work with ganache + meta mask to simulate crypto transactions

Sean Castanon
Larnell Moore