Gift - A gesture of kindness

Inspiration

Feeling overwhelmed by “stuff?” Unused and unwanted possessions tend to accumulate so much that it becomes an overwhelming burden when it’s time to move. In fact, the average U.S. household has 300,000 things. Imagine moving 300,000 things to another home. Even more concerning, the average American throws away more than 68 pounds of clothing per year, clogging up landfills at an alarming rate. And that is only clothing; consider everything else homeowners typically toss in the trash that are completely usable such as that night stand since they got a new one, or that keyboard since they just got gifted a better one.

What it does

Gift is a platform that connects doner and recipients, so that we can make someone's day, save the environment, lend a helping hand, and make the world a better place. Users use google sign in to create a unique account and user ID. That ID and all pertinent data is stored onto Firebase. Users can then view items that other people are donating by pulling from the database. Users can then ask for an item by clicking claim, or make a new post to donate their own items. Everyone can see all the people who are asking for an item, and the algorithm will pick and show who received the item to eliminate any bias and be impartial. The algorithm is ML based as weighs factors such as total items received, account age, items received today, etc to make the selection. Users can also chat with the doner, and make their case as to why they really need that item and arrange a pickup with the doner instead of letting the algorithm pick. To end the session, users can log out, or close the app.

How we built it

Android studio, Firebase, Kotlin and Google Cloud

Challenges I ran into

Trying to fit everything in a very short amount of coding time. Using Firebase and google log in is always a challenge. Getting used to fragments, models, recyclerview, adapters, etc. They are definitly more advanced than what we were used to and was the first time we’ve ever used it. Luckiliy the Google mentors were very helpful, and Ali helped a lot teaching me how to use fragments and recyclerview.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We have built a functioning app, with most of the features that we had originally planned for. The UI is very clean, though could be better if we had more time.

What I learned

How to use RecyclerView, fragments, models, adapters, Firebase and google log in. How much you can learn from awesome teammates.

What's next for Gift

The algorithm implemented in the demo video the random. We do want to learn ML and improve the algorithm instead of randomly generating the winner. We also want to expand the UI, and make it more user friendly.