Inspiration
JPMorgan Chase Challenge inspired me work on a project that could positively impact the society.
What it does
It connects students who might be going through a rough patch and/or experience mental health issues into a support network to communicate and help each other. On the website, a student can select either "I need help" to put their contact info for other students to connect to, or select "I want to help" to see what students need some support. The latter students can then message and/or call those students.
How I built it
I used Amazon Web Services, particularly Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, and API Gateway. DynamoDB contained the database of users, while an API from API Gateway read and wrote to the database using a Lambda. For the frontend, which is contained within an S3 bucket, I utilized React.
Challenges I ran into
I ran into a lot of issues with permissions in AWS. It took some time to set up reading and writing to the database. In addition, I knew next to nothing about React before I started this hackathon. Hence, building the frontend was challenging, too.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
First, I'm proud that I will be actually demoing my project at a hackathon. In addition, I am proud that I've accomplished more than I thought I would in 24 hours. Finally, I'm proud of the technical achievements I made, particularly communicating with the database via an API.
What I learned
I learned how to set up an API that communicates with a DynamoDB database, how to host a React website on S3, and that I can actually finish a project in 24 hours.
What's next for Help.io
I would like to dive deeper into React and developer a better UI for the website. In addition, I would like to finally figure out permissions for AWS, so that the user data is secure, yet accessible when needed. Next, I would like to implement a messaging system, so that students will be able to talk anonymously if they wish. Furthermore, I would like to set up user authentication that would enable the website to keep messages and support network for each student.
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