The Premise, The Purpose, The Project:
As two freshmen undergraduate students starting school during the middle of the pandemic, we both felt that it was surprisingly hard to find and connect with clubs that we were really interested in. We thought that the best ways to find these clubs, including the CalLink website, word-of-mouth, and the tables situated at Upper Sproul Plaza, are either unreliable or improvable in terms of use. Not only is it hard for students to easily find extracurricular activities they are passionate about, but some clubs, especially smaller ones that are buried deep into CalLink, may struggle to find as many members as they might recruit with more recognition. Small organizations are simply overshadowed by larger and louder organizations. We wanted to create a website that would work to allow students and organizations to connect with each other much more easily. We used HTML/JavaScript/CSS with Node.js and MongoDB for the backend of our website.
Powerful Information We Processed (Learned)
In addition to it being both of our first in-person hackathons, Andrew was only somewhat experienced with web-based coding, so it was great practice. Furthermore, we learned a lot about collaboration and trying to bridge between the front end and the back end of the website. Lastly, time management was something that a hackathon really tests, and this was something we needed to stay on top of constantly, especially with the CSS designing.
Challenges and Problems
As a team of two, it was definitely not easy to create a robust and completely functional project (nor was it easy to come up with a project we both liked, though we ended up finding one). Furthermore, a couple of meetings during the hackathon and late nights beforehand were things we had to juggle. Coding-wise, some bugs with margins and centering for features definitely took up a lot of time. Also, a server that we wanted to use on the back end was working in a way that we did not expect, so adjusting for this server took a considerable amount of effort.
What's next for the Great Garbanzo?
Unfortunately with the given time constraints and our little experience, we were not able to achieve some of the features we desired, such as enabling messaging, calendar editing, and event planning through the platform. For example, we think that there are some days where students might really want to meet others through a one-time event but have no idea where events are happening. These ideas pose as great starters for the future development of this project or even as a starting point for us to practice.
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