HelpCape

Inspiration

We wanted to participate in a hackathon and were very interested in the opportunities that could arise from it. The app itself is largely a homebrew design, with the main objectives in its usage being a clean interface, clearly represented information, and a straightforward user experience.

What it does

The app begins by allowing users to sign in, and presents them with the option of creating an organization. With their organization, they can create contact information for volunteers to reach them at and post job listings.

Any user can then go to the listings pane to accept a job posting, which will contain their information for the organization to view and approve or deny.

How we built it

The application was built in PHP with laravel, and designed using mdbootstrap 4. The underlying data is stored using mysql. The entire application uses free tools to operate. 90 oz of coffee were consumed in the process of development over the total course of 30 hours.

We chose to use php and mdbootstrap due to prior experience with them.

Challenges we ran into

Our team had a very diverse set of skills and experience in dev work, so choosing a tech stack and catching everyone up in its use took a little time. When we had reached a point to break off and start dividing the work, things began to move much more quickly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Producing a fairly refined app over a single weekend.

What we learned

Several of us had not used PHP before, and only one of us had used phpstorm.

What's next for HelpCape

-Adding feedback/notifications for when a job has been completed

-User-uploaded attachments

-Filtered searches

-User work histories

Most of these features are already outlined in our app, as we had designed the app around their inclusion. For example, the filters that will be used for searching already exist as tables in the database, so the next step for them would be designing a search sidebar to support them.