Kolok

Inspiration

In one of our Poli Sci classes, we thought about how people could be more informed on issues, and how could we connect constituents with their representatives.

What it does

Kolok is news targeted towards college students. It lets you view news in a Tindr-like feed. Short simple headlines with summarized content. You can swipe left to dismiss topics and stories, or swipe right if you love them. The app prioritizes collegiate institutions first for sources.

How we built it

The Android app pulls data from a custom backend in Python using the Falcon REST library to communicate with a news aggregator and deliver content to the app. The app also uses CloudBoost to hold swipe data and authenticate users.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was not having enough time combined with scope creep! We kept coming up with ideas to improve the app but didn't have enough to integrate them. That and Android layouts. Android layouts are horrible. Accomplishments that we're proud of

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Working on the full stack.

Working so well together as a team.

Getting a nice polished product out of the door.

What we learned

Android development, web development, how to effectively build a product from the ground up and how to deliver it in a limited timespan.

What's next for Kolok

We hope to share the swipe data with state representatives to help them gauge public opinion on matters and possible measures. We would also show this data back to the user, so that they could have their swipe history. Finally, we'd like to implement the Microsoft Graph API so that we could allow local collegiate news organizations to log-in to our app and direct publish from Word or OneDrive.