Inspiration
Oftentimes when a child falls behind in school at a young age and doesn't have any resources to get back on track, it only snowballs as they get older. We wanted to provide a matching service based on specific criteria to find these children who are struggling find a mentor. We found it especially true for children in homes that don't speak English, so having mentors available that can speak in other languages was crucial for our project.
What it does
When you go to the website we have a form you fill out. Based on the criteria entered, it searches our mentor database to find matches. When the matches are made we provide all of the mentor information along with a map of the closest library for safe space to meet.
How we built it
For the final iteration we used HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with a MySQL database on the Infinity Free platform to host our site.
Challenges we ran into
ALL OF THEM! First we were trying use python to code and couldn't connect to our database. We learned that the free version of Infinity Free no longer allows remote database connections. It took us a while to figure out how to connect our database through a php script on Infinity Free. Once we got the database connected, it was another struggle figuring out how to connect our form input to the database query. Natalia went ahead and wrote a backup JS script in the meantime. We managed to get both the JS code and php code working eventually but stuck with JS because we felt it offered better presentation.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
ALL OF THEM! All of us working as a team completing our very first hackathon! And our website works :)
What we learned
Syntax, syntax, syntax. One missing . will break your entire page. Also YouTube and W3schools can be very helpful. It's amazing what you can accomplish in 24 hours.
What's next for Mentor Match
Once the mentor match has been made, we want to offer a choice between in-person or virtual option. If virtual, we would provide them with a zoom link. If in person, we would provide google maps directions. We would also like to provide them with the closest library location for a safe space to meet or if internet is needed. We would also like to keep separate databases of all of our Mentor-Student matches along with only the Students.
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