Filo | Devpost

Inspiration

Our the last couple of years, COVID has had a lasting financial impact on students. With the dramatic change due from COVID, students may struggle to handle their money wisely. With our Filo website, we wanted to help connect students to a site where they could manage their budget as well as find valuable resources to help them financially.

What it does

Offers a form that discusses the financial situation of the user. Additionally, there is another form that tries to gauge your understanding of good financial practices that most students should apply into their lives if not done so already. Finally, there are a plethora of links that can lead the user to various sites where they can help improve their financial stability or help them find a better career job or opportunity.

How we built it

Using Ruby-on-Rails and Heroku, we were able to construct our website to properly display different menus as well as prompt up different forms for users to fill out form TypeForms. We also were able to provide links to useful websites.

Challenges we ran into

Integrating the Typeforms was an ordeal to conquer. We had to make sure that all of the data was implemented and displayed correctly. Setting up Ruby-on-Rails as well as Heroku were difficult at first due to our lack of experience with both of them, but their utility made the process exponentially faster. We also had some issues with the development of transitioning to different pages, but that issue was resolved soon enough.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Utilizing both the Heroku and Ruby-on-Rails was a feat that we are especially proud of. The ordeal took over 3 hours to get functioning properly, but with their help, the process went so much faster for designing it. Furthermore, learning about how to use HTML and CSS was great as we now possess skills needed to make a proper website. Overall, we are very happy that this project took us less than 24 hours to make due to our teamwork and efficient cooperation.

What we learned

Using resources like Heroku and Ruby are powerful resources, but very tough to manage. It's best to do research on these tools before attempting to make a faulty program. Collaboration is key in order to keep up with the pace of the Hackathon. By dividing our work, we were able to make significant amounts of progress in very little time. Additionally, taking suggestions from others plays a vital role. Sometimes a solution to a problem can be a different approach or perspective on the situation at hand.

What's next for Filo

We plan on adding additional resources for students to view. We would like to expand the budgeting process to be more complex and engaging. We hope to maybe expand our field into other vital aspects of students' lives like physical/mental health. Furthermore, we could plan on reaching out to other demographics such as older adults or retired citizens who may need financial help. Overall, our goals would be to expand our ability to help to a wider audience as well as increase the efficiency and utility of that help.