orbit

Main page
Surprise Me!
Selecting interests

Inspiration

Picture this. You have a plan to go out, but instead of actually going out, you stay in your room doomscrolling on TikTok (aiyooo). You try many things from putting restrictions, locking your phone and putting it on DND. But nothing seems to work! The issue is not your phone, but the fact you have nowhere to go. Thats where orbit comes in 😏

What it does

Orbit is a social event recommender website where users are able to select their interests and be recommended events based on it. If they are feeling adventurous, they can go try out "Deep Signals" to show events that are outside the orbit of their interests. Additionally, there is a "Surprise Me" feature where users can select a specific date and be given events to try out throughout the day based on their availability.

How we built it

We dedicated an hour to coming up with the idea and also planning the features to ensure we don't end up overdoing in such a limited time. After that, we carefully decided our tech stack:

React and TypScript: For the frontend Next.js: For the backend Firebase: For database

Challenges we ran into

It was our first time using Firebase as a database, and we spent a significant amount of time figuring out how to configure the API keys and connect it to our website. Moreover, we faced issues with the PredictHQ API when fetching real-time events, as handling authentication and parsing the returned data required several rounds of debugging.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

In our team, we have some beginner coders, and we’re really proud of how everyone stepped up to learn new tools and contribute meaningfully to the project. Despite our different experience levels, we managed to build a fully functional app, integrate Firebase successfully, and meet our main objectives within the deadline.

What we learned

Teamwork: Effective collaboration isn’t just about dividing tasks, it’s about communicating clearly, supporting each other, and adapting to everyone’s strengths. Problem-Solving: Debugging under pressure taught us patience and the importance of breaking complex problems into smaller, manageable parts. User Experience: We realised that even the best technical features fall flat without an intuitive and engaging design. Adaptability: Learning new tools like Firebase and PredictHQ on the go pushed us to think creatively and learn fast.