InterConnect

Our Register Page.
Our Search Page.
Our Chat Page.

Inspiration

Throughout our first three quarters at UC Davis, we noticed that there is an influx of international students. We also observed that there is a lack of connection between the international and domestic students. This gap arises due to various reasons such as cultural differences, language barriers, and limited opportunities for interaction. Despite being part of the same university community, these students often find it challenging to bridge these gaps and establish meaningful connections. In order to bridge the gap between international and domestic students at Davis, we’ve developed the platform InterConnect, which enables both domestic and international students to seamlessly connect with each other through a text messaging app.

What it does

When. users first registers, they are asked to input information about themselves, including their age, school year, the language they know, etc. From there, the user can jump into the filtered search. The filtered search allows users to find people they want to talk to based on a multitude of factors, such as age, language, and gender, as well as searching by name. After finding some people that they think are interesting or similar to them, they can then jump into the chat feature. The second part of the app is a private messaging feature, where users can talk to one another and figure out the best way to help each other. The purpose of this is to have students organize meetups and build connections that they normally wouldn't have the chance to make. Through this process, we hope to see many more people interacting with communities different from their own.

How we built it

To build the basis for our messaging system, we utilized this github code. We then built off of this basis and this github code for a static search to create a responsive search page based on the user information in our Firebase database and the filters that the user uses.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge we faced was implementing the backend for the database. Retrieving and sending data without causing errors was quite tough, as we had to wait for the components to be mounted before doing any API calls. Another big challenge we faced was connecting the two sections of our project together, because we developed each part of the project separately, so the code for each is quite different. We definitely learned that we should communicate more about our sections and plan better so that our pathing meshes together well.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The main accomplishment we are proud of is creating an app that actively interacts with the backend and one that can help our fellow students expand their horizons.

What we learned

We learned a lot about web development, especially about React and using databases to improve the app.

What's next for InterConnect

In the future, we hope to improve the integration between the chat and search features in the app, so that the transition is much smoother for the user. We also hope to implement a better screening process for users, such as restricting emails to just UC Davis emails, so that malicious strangers cannot make random accounts to mess with students.