Humans Helping Humans

An application that helps people in poverty get access to basic resources

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Inspiration

This past year, COVID-19 has affected the lives of many people and taken even the most basic resources from people in need. To give back to our community and be thankful, we decided this would be a great idea for this to be an inspiration for our first project!

What it does

Using Xcode and Google Firebase Database, Humans Helping Humans is an application primarily focused to help low-income citizens or those in poverty by helping to provide them with basic needs such as clothing or food. Users start off by creating an account, which will lead them to a home screen where users can see many opportunities to donate to those in need. The home screen displays key information in regards to each opportunity such as the name of the user, item they are looking for donations, contact information, and the location to drop off the donations. The application has integrated features through where users can donate or request donations in a simple effective way due to the app’s easy-to-navigate UI.

How we built it

First, we had to set up the authentication and database for humans helping humans on Google Firebase, which allowed us to store user information and authenticate the user based on their account. Then, we created each screen and added all interactive elements, such as buttons, labels, scroll views, table views, etc. After that, we had to connect all of the user interface elements to the code files. Finally, we had to create the code, which gave the functionality of the elements and stored information in the database. This was by far the hardest step, as it was the step with the most errors and failures due to the complex nature of databases, and retrieving information.

Challenges we ran into

First, it was difficult to create the functionality in our code which allowed for the automatic placement of a location on the apple map, because neither of us had ever done this in the past. In order to overcome this, we familiarized ourselves with the mapkit on the documentation, then we implemented this with other previous knowledge to create this functionality. Additionally, we ran into the problem of conflicting constraints very often due to sometimes a surplus of constraints being added as features were slowly added into the app. This was resolved by incorporating more stack views instead, allowing for simpler constraints.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud of our accomplishment to connect people through our own technology. This is done by allowing our app to be accessed by anyone in the world in any location. Additionally, we incorporated subtle, but important features in the user interface, such as the ease of communicating with a creator, the simple to read posts, the search page that lets you search for any element of any post, and the map which automatically is able to tell where a request is being made. This allows us to be able to make the world a better place through the most modern and relevant solutions.

Built With

Swift 5 and Xcode 12, using a database hosted by Google Firebase

What's next for Humans Helping Humans

It was not easy building an application from scratch! A follow-up project would be to incorporate artificial intelligence to make this a more effective application as we both like machine learning and think that it could increase the functionality of this app! Then we could use our combined knowledge of coding, and program Humans Helping Humans for Android and as a website one step at a time, allowing for the already large user platform to grow even more.

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