Inspiration
I was inspired by the moodle our department uses back at my varsity to share resources and take exams. So I targeted building a look-alike or something related to that moodle if not exactly the moodle. Many students around the globe cannot get access to notes, let alone PDFs of books. So I decided to come up with a platform where students can share things at their end freely and others can access them without any credits.
What it does
This website helps students to share files under the supervision of admins. One student can upload a PDF or an image and the rest of the students can access those free of cost. There also remains an option of downloading the resources other than viewing them online.
How we built it
In order to build the website, I used the Laravel framework of PHP and MySQL at the backend as a database. For the frontend, I used plain HTML and Bootstrap. The database here uses an eloquent relational model so it was easier to query things.
Challenges we ran into
Maintaining the database was a challenge as I don't have any academic experience in database management till now. Some SQL statements raised exceptions. So I had to remain ever vigilant while coding so that I don't ruin the relations or run an inefficient migration. Understanding the Laravel file structure can also be hectic sometimes.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
First and foremost, I am proud of submitting a somewhat working project in the hackathon. I wanted to showcase many things from which many were left out. Still, I was able to enable an uploading method in my web app, include download functionality in the system, and many more. Handling the database was also a notable win for me.
What we learned
While doing this project, I learned to keep patience and not be clumsy in doing any work. I learned to work with a framework more concisely I learned beforehand. I also learned to keep doing work within the deadline.
What's next for Chothahub
I plan to enable a notification system for Chothahub which I couldn't achieve during this weekend. I also intend to add features for viewing PowerPoint files in my web app which cannot be done at present.
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