CharityConnect

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  Charity Connect Logo

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  Data stored in Firebase

Inspiration

As we started brainstorming ways we wanted to improve the place we live in, we thought about how the various sites needed to navigate the events made finding drives that we can partake in very complicated. As a result, we thought of an app that condenses information about running charity drives and presents it to the users, enabling them to easily participate if they choose to do so.

What it does

CharityConnect links users with charity drives (such as clothing, used items, books, canned food, etc) near them in turn helping the charity drives with finding people to get items from. It informs the user of upcoming events and opportunities in their area, logs their previous services, and ways in which they can help.

How we built it

First, we outlined the different wireframes for CharityConnect app in Balsamiq. After creating a mockup, we built the app using java in android studio. We created data fragments and interphases and connected them with buttons. We then stored the data that the user would input into the app in google cloud and firebase.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into challenges when working on the Android User Interface as there were a lot of formatting issues such as margins and spacing. In addition to the layout, learning how to use Android Studio features (such as RecyclerView) and Firebase were challenges we had to overcome. Throughout the day we read articles and watch YouTube videos to figure out how to use them successfully in our app.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One accomplishment that we are proud of is figuring out how to use Android Studio. At first, we didn’t know how to use it and struggled greatly with getting the app running correctly and debugging the code. After hours of struggling and perseverance, seeing our app come together and run successfully was an exciting experience.

What we learned

We learned how to use android studio, which was a challenge at first, and quickly got proficient at it. Most of us have never made an app before, so this experience taught us the importance of mockups, how to gather and use information from the cloud, how to ensure a clean user experience, and many more.

What's next for CharityConnect

We have many plans for CharityConnect. We want to broaden our reach by possibly including more types of events and charities to connect our users with. We can also streamline the app by releasing the app abroad. Furthermore, we want to accumulate and catalog more user statistics to enable people to track progress more efficiently.

Built With

• android-studio
• balsamiq
• firebase
• java