OpenInvite

The Event Feed
Adding an Event
The Event Map
The Login Screen

Inspiration

We wanted to remove the hassle from making plans with friends, starting with the initial invite.

What it does

It allows users to login with their existing Snapchat account to post Open Invitations to their friend group. They select a time, location, description, and even a Bitmoji to represent their event. Users can also view posted events on a feed or map layout, and RSVP to let their friends know they're coming.

How we built it

Our app is written in Swift 4, using the Snapchat Snapkit SDK as well as Firebase Firestore for our database.

Challenges we ran into

By far our biggest hurdle was dependency management, we ended up spending far too long trying to make everything place nice across our development machines. After that using Firestore proved to be a decent challenge, with it's schemaless and asynchronous nature. Additionally we struggled to optimize image loading, earlier versions of the app would frequently stutter as we pulled the various Bitmojis from the web. Finally time was an issue, as there were things that just weren't feasible in 24 hours.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're very pleased with our UI, it borrows design cues from the Snapchat app and looks killer. Our use of Bitmojis is also a source of pride, as well as our auto-refresh on the event feed and map screens.

What we learned

We learned how to better handle asynchronous code on iOS, as well as how to better manage our dependencies. It was also fun to learn how to use Snapchat's SDK and Firebase's mobile first database. Apple's Mapkit was interesting to learn, especially when it came to displaying images over it.