Magic Neighbor

Inspiration

We were inspired by State Farm's project track, which talked about bettering the community in some way. Immediately, we thought about the State Farm motto, "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there!" and knew we wanted to do something with neighbors!

What it does

Our app connects a neighborhood like never before, offering a unique and intuitive request and offer exchange platform for neighbors looking to connect, help others, and make their lives easier.

How we built it

We planned our tech stack and framework on the first night, and planned out all the necessary components our app would have, such as the main feed and the profile. Then the next day, we each picked a task and started working!

The frontend is built using React with Next.js for routing and bundling. All backend functionality, including data persistence and business logic, is implemented in Rust and is accessed via API endpoints. We used SQLite for our database.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into challenges integrating the back end and front end, as our team members were quite split on our skills. By the end, we became proficient at communicating between front-end and back-end members, and the process of making endpoints and connecting them to front-end forms became a lot easier. We also ran into GIT problems, such as merge conflicts and mismatched version histories. Solving them became more and more gratifying!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the way we worked together as a team to communicate and solve challenges. From the frustration of running into git problems that took an hour to solve, to realizing we were all referencing user id's differently, we came out of it as closer friends, with a lot more knowledge and a project we are all proud of!

What we learned

We learned the power of communications in teams, especially when building software. There is so much room for error, and if there is not solid communication and the ability to create a good plan, it can become a nightmare to sort through those issues later on.

What's next for Magic Neighbor

We are interested in adding more robust error handling, edit profile features as well as more customization to each individual profile. It would be great if we could integrate a message platform into the app so that instead of simply contacting phone numbers, users can send each other direct messages. Other features such as an embedded map software for distance tracking and a point system for incentivizing users are also on our radar.