Grafie

Inspiration

Though photography is a part of many lives, we rarely get to appreciate those behind the camera. We wanted a way to better share the art created by local talent, as well as give them more opportunities to grow in the future.

What it does

Grafie allows both potential employers and general users to browse and connect with local photographers. Photographers can advertise their services to those interested, using their previous work as their portfolio. Pictures, photographers, and employers can all be rated depending on employment experiences and user preferences.

How we built it

The android version of the application was built by two members in Android Studio using Java. The web version of the application was built by the other two members using a combination of HTML, CSS, Javascript, JQuery, and AngularJS.

Challenges we ran into

Due to lack of experience from multiple team members, we realized early on that focusing entirely on a web app would not be useful, as most people would only be able to provide minimal help. Dividing out team into an Android and Web team allowed everyone to learn and be a useful team member.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of the idea we came up with, as we felt it was something that could actually be a useful part of some peoples' lives, due to the expanding interest of photography. The team members learned a lot: each half of the team had one team leader and one apprentice, with the apprentices having little experience in coding in general. The apprentices learned a lot, and the team leads were happy with how much they accomplished in the given time, with the entire codebase coming from scratch.

What we learned

We learned that we should come up with an idea and development plan well before the actual hackathon. The first hour and a half of the hackathon was just coming up with an idea, and another hour was burnt having one person trying to teach three others web development, before we realized it would be more efficient to split up the teams. That time could've been used better to improve all aspects of our app.

What's next for Grafie

We plan to make Grafie more location based. In different cities, Grafie will automatically filter results based on your location, and determine the best options available. We hope to expand Grafie to multiple communities, share our interest with others, and increase opportunities for freelance talent.