GoalBuddies

Some screenshots of GoalBuddies

Inspiration

Life gets busy, things get hard, and so goals become difficult to attain as we lose our motivation. With everything 2020 has brought us, it has been increasingly difficult to receive encouragement and support from others when we want to improve ourselves. GoalBuddies was created around the idea that as "buddies," we can set out to achieve goals with one another and keep each other accountable. With groups, we can support each other and provide the motivation needed to accomplish more tasks. You'll never feel like you're on your own journey anymore!

What it does

GoalBuddies allows users to create and track personal goals, with the added feature of group goals. Members within the same group share the same goals and work together towards completing them, which encourages a supportive and growth-oriented environment. Users may also follow other users with whom they share similar goals and hobbies.

How we built it

The front-end was built entirely using React Native and its libraries. The back-end was built using Node.js and MYSQL. Express.js was used to facilitate the development of the RESTful API, AWS was used for database hosting, and Heroku for back-end hosting.

Challenges we ran into

React Native and MySQL were completely new technologies to us, so they presented a bit of a learning curve. In addition, the remote nature of the hackathon also made it difficult for synchronous development to occur, additional communication and planning was needed to develop in an asynchronous manner.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

For most of us, this was the first mobile application that we have built. Although it was a difficult start, the final product is something that we are all proud of creating. We also attempted to develop a more complex back-end, and with the time allocated for this hackathon, we are able to serve our time effectively on both the front-end and back-end of the application.

What we learned

We were able to learn about mobile applications and the tools used to build them. More specifically, we learned how to utilize React Native and Redux to create the front-end of our application, and how to build a back-end with MySQL and Node.js.

What's next for GoalBuddies

The next steps we can take for GoalBuddies is adding more features such as an interactive feed to see goals completed by you and your friends, increased social features, and gamification features to further increase incentive for achieving goals.

We also hope to publish the app to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store soon!

Built With

Submitted to

SummerHacks

Created by

I worked on the front-end designs and functionalities. I've had a lot of fun learning and exploring React Native, seeing how powerful it is in covering everything from UI design to making API calls.

Thuy Nguyen
I worked on the front-end. It was my first time using React Native, but a few tutorials helped me get started! It was great to see how one language built our entire front-end and needed only simple calls to connect with our back-end.

Jennifer Suriadinata
I worked on the back-end utilizing Node.js, Express.js, and MYSQL to develop the database and RESTful API needed to allow the social aspect of our platform to function. I was also able to implement CI/CD pipelines through Heroku.

Jefferson Ye
I helped develop and architect the backend with Node.js, Express, and MySQL to interface with the frontend. Focused on organizing routes and optimization between the frontend and backend.

Matthew O