Inspiration
After facing the end of high school, one of our team members had a dream: to move to a mountain town and learn how to snowboard. The idea of embracing adventure and chasing personal growth was thrilling — but there was a problem. Not knowing anyone else who wanted to do the same thing made the prospect daunting. Without a community or even a single companion to share the experience, the dream felt out of reach, and it was eventually set aside. This feeling of isolation and the barrier it created sparked the idea for Flock — a platform designed to connect people with shared ambitions and encourage them to pursue life experiences together, whether it’s moving to a new city, learning a new sport, or starting a passion project. We wanted to build something that turns "I wish I could" into "We’re doing this together."
What it does
Flock is a social platform that helps people discover and connect with others who share the same life goals and experiences. Whether you want to move to a new place, pick up a new hobby, or start an adventure, Flock helps you find your community. Users can create profiles, set their aspirations, and join or start "flocks" — groups centered around shared goals. Through these flocks, users can chat, plan, and motivate each other to turn dreams into reality.
How we built it
We used TypeScript, Express, and Postman to develop the backend, and Swift, SwiftUI, and Figma for the frontend. By following the MVC (Model-View-Controller) design pattern, we were able to create organized, maintainable code, which enhanced both testability and flexibility. Our backend APIs handle user authentication, flock creation, and messaging, while our SwiftUI frontend brings the experience to life with a sleek and intuitive design. Figma helped us prototype the user journey and maintain visual consistency throughout development.
Challenges we ran into
We faced challenges relating to the steep learning curve of Swift, Xcode, and full-stack development in general. Balancing frontend and backend development while learning new technologies under time pressure was difficult. Additionally, as this was our first hackathon and our first time working together as a team, dividing tasks efficiently and maintaining clear communication required extra effort. Coordinating design, development, and integration tested our ability to stay agile and collaborative.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We’re proud of successfully building a full-stack app in such a short time, despite starting with limited experience. We also created a clean, user-friendly interface that brings our vision to life. Most of all, we're proud of how we grew as a team and learned to work together effectively. Seeing our idea come to life and watching people interact with our platform has been an incredible reward.
What we learned
We learned how to collaborate under pressure and the importance of clear communication in a team setting. We picked up new technologies like SwiftUI, Postman, and improved our understanding of full-stack development. We also gained experience in designing APIs, structuring our code with MVC, and creating an app from concept to execution. Most importantly, we learned that building something meaningful is possible, even under tight constraints, when you work as a team.
What's next for Flock
We’re excited about the potential of Flock and want to keep building it beyond the hackathon. Our next steps include implementing location-based matching to help users find flocks nearby, improving our chat functionality, and adding features like event planning and calendar integrations. We also plan to refine our UI/UX based on user feedback and explore launching a beta version to gather early users. Ultimately, we envision Flock as a go-to platform for anyone looking to take the leap into new adventures — together.
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