Gather

Our Logo
Hacking Setup
First iteration of Gala
Front Facing Gala
Thinking Gala
Error Gala
Mobile Media1
Mobile Media 2

Inspiration

Gather was born from necessity. After hosting many events, team member Claribel found the process of planning and hosting to be difficult and overwhelming. No matter how much effort a host puts into planning an event, there’s always a stone left unturned. Thus, the need for Gather was made apparent to the whole team.

What it does

At its core, Gather is an all-in-one party planning hub.

If you’re an experienced host, take control of every detail without having to remember it all. If you’re not an experienced host, you have Gala, who is!

Your new elephant friend is trained in all matters of event hosting and she’s ready to step in at any point of your process with tailored advice, just for you: Suggest event themes Curate food menus Calculates detailed budgets Reminders for important or forgotten tasks

If you choose to plan solo, take advantage of the extensive customization features to plan exactly the way you like it.

Start by creating an event and giving it a name and a “type”- is this a celebration or a casual gathering? Get into the nitty-gritty details of your event: Schedule Food Menu Tasks (Which can be assigned to others through invitations!) Venue and Decor Guest list Personalized invitations Thank you notes

Our favorite feature Our dev team’s favorite feature is the personalized invitations. The host can take advantage of unique invitation links to customize the invitation per guest. When the guest receives the link, they could encounter: RSVP response: Gather gets ahead of the ‘Maybe’ responses by setting weekly reminders Plus 1 reservation: Allow selected guests to offer a ‘plus 1’ invitation Dietary restrictions: Create a menu that fits everyone Task Delegation: Ask a guest to handle a task in your task list. Need someone to pick up ice? Add it to their invitation! The guest can accept or decline the request. Anything else! The user can ask whatever question they please to whoever they’d like.

How we built it

Our team of 4 was divided into two camps: front end: Mario, Gabriel Figma Javascript/css Expo back end: Cristian, Claribel Node with Express SQL with Supabase Swarm API Google API

We started with a brainstorm, listing anything and everything that came to mind. We started by asking: How do we want people to feel using Gather? Who is this for? How much can we do within a weekend?

We gradually carved out our vision for the user experience and translated that into a requirements document we could all work from.

For over 24 hours, we communicated through phone and screen share to bounce off one another’s ideas, troubleshoot, and share a laugh every once in a while.

Each team member built their features and the last stretch of the hackathon was plugging it all in and creating media to showcase our creation.

Challenges we ran into

Database restructuring: Despite having a schema designed ahead of the start of the build, we realized we would consolidate and optimize 3 tables into 1. We spent a careful hour untangling the code from the 2 eliminated tables, but ultimately we were successful.

Art: After coming up with the idea to create Gala, we did not know what animal she would be or how she looked. We did not want to use AI for this task, and we struggled building her identity. A kind spectator, partner of a team member, quickly drew a little grey elephant and we all loved her.

Sleep: At some points, health took priority over the build, and some members worked solo for a couple hours, without anyone to talk through the logic with. In the end, we all took a solo shift and powered through until the rest of the team rejoined.

Version control: We learned in the moment how to work on a repository, handling merges, pushes, and commits.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Complete App This is our first hackathon where we started and completed the product we set out to do

Team synergy We had strong team chemistry throughout every good, bad and ugly situation and because of this we have come out stronger and more confident when hurdles did arise

Version Control: With strong communication, everyone came out a little smarter about github

What we learned

How to estimate scope of work

How to manage versions

How to build a mobile app

What's next for gather

Version 2.0:

Vendor Shopping
Find the best company for your specific catered event
Be told what is included and not included from said vendor directly from the app.
Be able to include in budget cost of renting out decor, food, and any other fees from said vendors