Inspiration

In today's age, services like Box and Google Drive hold too much power when it comes to storing our files. In some cases, for one missed payment, it's easy to lose all of your data. Wouldn't you rather this server be hosted in your house where you have complete control?

Although you can store files on your local computer, it won't be practical long term because you will eventually run out of space, and your computer will be slower due to low disk space.

It will be more beneficial to host a local server that acts as a dedicated file storage that can scale up with external hard drives.

What it does

File Frontier acts as a webserver which hosts a website where you can upload files, hosted on a Raspberry Pi that can be stored in your home or office.

How we built it

  • Flash Raspberry Pi with Raspian
  • Connected external hard drive
  • Installed dependencies needed for development
  • Configured custom user for Raspberry Pi
  • Developed frontend and backend

Challenges we ran into

  • Linux permission issues
  • Git issues
  • Figuring out where to host server
  • Initial Raspberry Pi hardware issues
  • Time management

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Aesthetic Figma frontend design
  • Raspberry Pi setup/configuration

What we learned

  • How to make custom users on Raspberry Pi
  • How to serve files with Flask
  • How to create a React app
  • Integrating React with Flask

What's next for File Frontier

  • File organization
  • Dark mode
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