PI - Political Involvement

Inspiration

During the last election cycle, finding information about the various candidates and legislation on the ballot was a tedious process. The hassle of trying to navigate multiple websites, potential media bias, and the major political movements that have occurred inspired us to create an app that consolidates the information. We know that for many people the lack of access to easy information about various civic topics such as contacting elected officials and legislation being discussed prevents them from looking for it. Although local policies affect people the most, media coverage and finding information about it is the hardest, so we hoped to create a platform that makes civic engagement as easy as possible.

What it does

The first page of our app allows the user to decide between finding information by zipcode or local events. The local events tab Our app asks users to input their zip code. Based on that information, the app then consolidates national, state, and local civic information and provides a link for users to click on and access the information.

How we built it

We brainstormed UI - we wanted to make it as simple and user friendly as possible so that people could easily find information. We then looked up documentation and tutorials for Dart and created an app.

Challenges we ran into

We didn’t know how the language - Dart - so we had to look up documentation. Most of our team is also inexperienced in coding, so we had to learn the basics before we could apply anything. It was also difficult coordinating when we could meet because of differing schedules.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our ability to learn so much in a short amount of time and apply it to the development of our application. Most of us didn’t know each other before this weekend but we supported each other and worked well as a team. We taught each other information we learned and worked together to design our application.

What we learned

We learned to prioritize what we wanted to do in a short amount of time. We learned how to better communicate our ideas with each other. In terms of coding, many of us learned the basics and we learned how to apply those concepts.

What's next for PI - Political Involvement

We hope to expand the information that is available through the application when it is personalized for the zipcode. We plan to include information about legislation being debated in Congress, representatives to contact for specific issues, information about propositions during election season, and state level policies that are being implemented. A major focus for our app will continue to be local politics since they have a significant impact on the lives of civilians and people have the biggest opportunity to make an impact through local civic engagement. We want this to include information about local elections and candidates, town hall meetings, and an option to input and see local demonstrations that are occurring.