Inspiration
Both of us on G∑U know that supporting small businesses is important. But when we started college this August, we faced an unforeseen challenge: Since we're from New Jersey, neither of us knew the area! That's why we made LocalQuest, to help others explore a new area while supporting local businesses.
What it does
All you have to do is give LocalQuest some suggestions on things you're interested in. This can be things like "dinner", "fun", "for kids", or even more abstract things like "hungry". From there, LocalQuest uses Natural Language Processing and AI to determine which small businesses match your tastes. While LocalQuest currently only recommends businesses in Fairfax County, we hope that with more budget and time, LocalQuest can expand to other locations.
How we built it
We used Python to scrape webpages with businesses in Fairfax County, as well as to build the backend in Flask. Using HTML, CSS, and JS to bring everything together, we have a cohesive project to present to you today. A big thank you to AWS, which has allowed us to host LocalQuest in the cloud.
Challenges we ran into
We struggled initially with working with Flask, which is a new technology for us. However, through hard work, perseverance, and lots of visits with the mentors, we pulled through. We also struggled with a coherent theme for our product, as we were unsure if we could portray it as a game, or as a serious service.
What we learned
This hackathon, we learned a lot about AWS, Flask, and web development from working on our project. However, we also learned a ton from all the sponsors, mentors, and organizers that put this hackathon together. Through attending workshops to learn new topics and completing the arduous process of producing this website, we were able to gain a glimpse into what it takes to pursue a career in software engineering.
What's next for LocalQuest
Given the chance, LocalQuest would love to expand to other locations to celebrate small businesses around the world. Additionally, to enhance the user experience, LocalQuest would like to use an API like Google's to display the businesses on a map. We also hope that we could partner with these local businesses to provide exclusive deals and products to our users.
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