MyGov

Inspiration

In the 2020 Presidential Election, only 62.8% of eligible voters voted. In the 2022 midterm election, only 49% of eligible voters voted. (PewResearch) According to a survey from the Edward M Kennedy Institute of eligible voters "About one-third (35%) could name one of their two Senators, including just 16% who are able to name both Senators (42% of voters can name at least one Senator, compared to just 16% of non-voters)." In the United States, many voters are civically engaged or informed. To spread Civic Awareness and Engagement we decided to create a mobile app for United States citizens to use to learn more about their congressional members, and the bills they vote on, and connect voters to polling stations and candidates.

App

This mobile app allows the user to search for congressional members, using a scroll-down menu of states and then select senators or representatives to learn their party, websites, and bills they voted for or against

How we built it

We used Xcode as our main IDE and used Swift as the main programming language. This app was built by utilizing the authentication and database of Firebase. It also utilizes the congress.gov and googles civic information APIs.

Challenges we ran into

We had many challenges when it came to accessing the Firebase data with swift. Also, we had issues with accessing APIs and combing our code into one file.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One main accomplishment that we're proud of is learning how to use Swift which was a new language for most members. We were also able to successfully implement API, persevered through countless errors, and worked as a team.

What we learned

We learned that motivation and teamwork are essential to finish an intensive project in 24 hours. We also learned how to use XCode and Swift, which is beneficial for programming IOS apps.