Inspiration
We were inspired by small businesses that we saw while traveling to USF. Many of them were empty. We grabbed food from some small restaurants and realized they were underrated and underappreciated. When we saw the prompt, we thought of trying to help these businesses because we know how hard social media algorithms can be. We then realized that cultural traditions are ranked even lower in the algorithm, so we decided to help promote them.
What it does
Our project helps small businesses and community cultures by promoting them at the top. Users can view many traditions/businesses in a short amount of time with all the necessary information (date, duration, location, and description). If interested, they can click for more details. If users want to stay updated on future events or businesses, they can subscribe with their email, and we will send weekly newsletters.
How we built it
We used HTML and CSS to build the website. We then used JavaScript to add functionality. We retrieved information using Flask with AI integration. For our weekly newsletter, we used Google Sheets, its API, and additional JavaScript to merge it into our app.
Challenges we ran into
One of our team members spent hours trying to integrate Flask AI directly into the website/app but couldn’t fully automate the process. We were able to retrieve information from it but couldn’t display it on the website without human intervention.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We spent hours working with mentors to integrate our website with Google Sheets. After countless attempts, we finally succeeded.
What we learned
Google Sheets' API is very finicky. Even when console logs and inspected elements return false errors, correctly entered data may still go through.
What's next for Hidden Chinatown
We plan to directly integrate Flask AI into our website, eliminating the need for manual mediation.
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