040 - Cloudpaper

Introduction

A webapp for collaborative document viewing designed for students to study together effectively.

Demo

Try it out here!

What it does

Cloud paper provides an online platform for collaborative learning.

Simulate a Study Group Session

Real time synchronized PDF page turning
Chat box for discussion
Drag slides around for organization

Easy sharing of files

Drag and drop PDF files to upload

How we built it

We used Node.JS with Koa2 and Handlebars. PDFs are rendered client side using Mozilla's PDF.js. Communication between server and clients is done using socket.io.

Challenges we ran into

We initially had trouble with the drag and drop functionality, but managed to overcome it. Settling on a UI that would be optimal was also a challenge, but we were able to settle on a design with feedback from other participants. Half of the team members had minimal experience in javascript and almost everyone in the team picked up NodeJS within this hackathon.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We used this hackathon as an opportunity to implement things we have not tried before. (Koa, socket.io, PDF.js) We are proud to have finished the app within the 24 hours allocated and we strongly believe that our app can be helpful for students' learning, this solution can extend to allow companies to utilize this proof of concept at work. (i.e synchronized presentation slides.)

What we learned

This was a great learning experience in software engineering for all of us. We learnt that good planning from the start and well allocation and delegation of work load will help us finish the app on time.