start

This is a relaxing space diary app, where users can learn more about the night sky and keep track of how they feel on a day to day basis.

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Inspiration

We knew we wanted to create a mental health app, as we had both just had really long days when we started brainstorming for this hackathon. We gathered things we both like do to destress, which included taking long walks, journaling, listening to chill music, and looking out the window. Basically anything that helps us SPACE out ;). That’s how we created this app named Start. We put everything that we enjoy doing into one app which can help keep track of how we’re feeling on a day to day basis as well as take a break from classes and learn something different.

What it does

This app incorporates a user's diary into a space-themed webapp. Users have the ability to create diary entries every day, with however they are feeling. They also have the option to update the diary entry for that day. We wanted to make sure that whatever they save is updated to include their new thoughts without modifying the original to signify that emotions can be felt at different times and moods can change quickly and that’s okay :)

Additionally, users can check out the current phase of the moon, view an in-depth version of the night sky to learn about the constellations above them, get a random cool space fact, and view all their past diary entries. Because a user's journal entries are saved to their Google account, they can also revisit their past journal entries at any time, and log out knowing the information will be safely stored.

How we built it

We built this app using React, Firebase, and BeatifulSoup. We used React for the front end, Firebase for login/authentication and user specific storage, and BeautifulSoup to webscrape cool space facts off the internet.

Challenges we ran into

Since we're both fairly new to using React and Firebase, it was definitely challenging to get the design looking exactly how we wanted. Additionally, we found it fairly challenging to store a specific user's diary entries to their account, especially in a way that they can retrieve it over a long period of time. Another unexpected challenge we ran into was getting random space facts, as we weren't sure how to make the design clean. We were able to get it to work at the end though, and even added some music as a fun extra :)

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're pretty proud that we were able to add everything we had intended to initially. We weren't sure if we'd be able to get Firebase integrated well, but we were eventually able to access and store the diary entries as intended! We're also very proud of the cool space facts section :D

What we learned

We learned a lot about how to use Firebase authentication! In the future, we'll definitely have an easier time with user-specific data access which gives us a lot more creative options in the future.

What's next for start

Some extensions we'd like to add in the future include more login features (other sign in options instead of just Google), a cleaner integration for the moon phases, more space facts, and better music integration.

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