Inspiration
When looking for an idea, our team realized that there was one thing no one disliked -- Free stuff! Unfortunately, with all the stuff that is given out by companies on college campuses and at hackathons, it's hard to keep track of what's happening when. We decided to make a social tool in order to help our users keep up to date on all the latest promotions in the area.
As the project grew, we realized it had many other applications. Our project became a bit like a public billboard: you could post things for all to see about what was going on in the area in a very specific place. We hope that the project can help bring people together and make it easier for people to enjoy things happening at any given time in any given area.
How it works
We wanted our app to be simple, so after signing in, you are immediately brought to a map of your surroundings. From here you can investigate what other people have found in the area, or even create a new "shout" at your current location for everyone else to see. From here, people can gather and take advantage of obscure opportunities, or just spend time getting to know each other better.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenges our team faced were with the technologies we worked with. We decided we were all going to work with something we weren't familiar with. As a result, each one of us was able to pick up a new skill over the weekend. Not only that, we each did a pretty good job polishing our individual parts and tying them all together.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Several of us worked with tools that we had never worked with before, so it was a chance to gain a new skill, programming-wise. For some of us, it was our first successful hackathon, and we were able to walk away with something we had created and could call our own.
What we learned
In addition to learning completely new platforms, we learned a lot about actually creating a piece of software that could go into production. About halfway through, we felt like we were well on track to finish on time, but by the time the last couple hours came around, we still had some details to iron out. It just goes to show that you always need to budget your time better than you think you have.
What's next for Moocher
We think Moocher has some real potential to help create new social environments and encourage more get-togethers, or at the very least interesting interactions, for people of all different ages and backgrounds.
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