Connect

Inspiration

As a small-town girl going to a big-city college, I thought it would be easy to make friends and collaborate with great minds on projects. However, as an introvert, I only made two close friends over four years and didn’t connect with many others on campus. I often wondered if people were working on things I would love to be part of but never knew about. This inspired me to create an app where students can find and connect with others on campus for fun, collaboration, and more.

What it does

The app connects students from the same campus, allowing them to share raw, funny memories, see what’s happening in real-time, find roommates, collaborate, and build communities. Users can connect by swiping through real people, and they can buy grow subscription which is yet to be launhed through a built-in payment system using RevenueCat.

How we built it

Initially, I started coding in Flutter but quickly realized it would take too long, so I switched to FlutterFlow. Despite being new to it, I learned from their website and built the app. For the database, I used Firebase.

Challenges we ran into

While FlutterFlow is marketed as a no-code platform, it still had its complexities. Even after being Python programmer, I had to figure out how variables, actions, and widgets worked differently. I spent an entire week working with the FlutterFlow team to resolve a deployment issue related to rules. Another challenge was implementing stacks to show posts from people within the same university.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I built the entire app without spending a dollar. It’s my first no-code app, and it turned out exactly how I envisioned it.

What we learned

Patience. I spent a whole week solving one error that turned out to be a small mistake. This taught me that striving for perfection can sometimes lead to delays.

What's next for Connect

The app is ready but not yet on the Play Store. The next step is to deploy it, gather user feedback, and iterate accordingly. There are still several features to improve, especially the chat functionality.