PenFriend

Inspiration

The digital world has brought convenience to our life but it also makes time pass by without notice. Day hours used to be slow, so was the mail. We created PenFriend to bring us back to the good old days, with slow living, genuine communication, getting to know what's out in the world.

What it does

PenFriend provides a platform where we can become penpals with people who speak the same language. After registered, PenFriend will assign new users with potential penpals based on the languages they selected. Users will receive letters within a period of time which is calculated by the distance between the pair of penpals. In the letter editor, PenFriend allows users to sign at the end of the letter, creating a realistic simulation.

How we built it

We built it with TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, CSS via React, Node.js, Express.js, Mongoose, and auth0.

Challenges we ran into

Since most of the group members are based in different locations with at most 12 hours of time difference, working on this project together at the same time has been hard. But we manage to make it work with the strong commitment of each member and efficient project management.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We all want to try out a new technique in this project but the time for us to get to know how it functions is limited. With a lot of document reading and testing, we successfully merge auth0 into this project. We are glad that we all learned something from this hackathon. Also, we have uploaded all the data to google cloud.

What we learned

Besides the technical side of learning, we also learned that communication and teamwork is the key. With efficient communication and teamwork, we are able to put everything together in this short period of time.

What's next for PenFriend

So far PenFriend is just a platform for people to get to know new friends. We want to build a platform where people can get to know what is on the other side of the world. After the pandemic began, it is hard for us to travel. We hope by using PenFriend, people can find the pleasure of getting to know a new place.