Salute

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  logo

Inspiration

Our main inspiration were the veteran experiences we heard during the beginning of the hackathon. Many of the issues they have had were the result of not having access to the resources that were already available. So, we decided to create an all-in-one platform that would make it easier for veterans that find all the available resources (veteran-specific) in their local area. Specifically, April (a member of the Girls in Tech staff) gave us fantastic insight into struggles of modern veterans.

What it does

The core features our website contains are finding events based on location, displaying the event attendees, a resource page for websites useful to veterans, and a calendar that displays military events around San Diego. Although an event finder and having verified users is not currently implemented into the site, they would be core features had we had more time to develop our site.

How we built it

We built our site by using HTML, CSS, and Python (with Flask). The individual pages of our site (home, resources, events) were built with HTML. These pages were then styled with CSS to add a calendar, a navigation bar, and formatting text/images. Python and Flask were used to render the site and put all the separate pages of the site together. We split the work by have one of our 3 developers work on each page. Once all the pages were completed/styled we implemented Flask and put all the pages together to create the final site. The presentation was created using Canva, Google Slides, ColorSpace, and Generate.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges that we ran into while creating our project was that our code wasn’t working because of small errors in our code for the resources page of the website. Although we later fixed the bug, we spent much time trying to fix the issue. All the developers collaborated to detect the bug and figure out how to fix it. In addition, we built a database structure, but we were not able to implement it due to time restraints. The most challenging part for our product manager & presenter team is addressing the problems we are solving and then create specific features and functions we would like to put on our website. Our value proposition is to help veterans find their directions and communities. Our website differentiate from our competitors is we create a profile for each verified users to find their similarity and common interest which can help find the communities and bond each other.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of all the collaborative effort we put into building this website. We worked very well as a team, effectively communicating when we didn't understand something or didn't have enough information. Each member respectfully listened to what each other had to say. Though the development team has limited coding experience (this isn't their full-time job), they used their collective skills to execute our web development, using a variety of coding languages and asking for mentor help when needed. We are also proud of the presentation that we put together, it is well thought out and rehearsed. Even if we do not get any prizes the work, effort, and diligence put in this project is admirable; we all have something to be proud of after this weekend.

What we learned

During this two day period, we created a website using multiple different languages (html, css, python) during this process, we learned many different things about errors that may occur in the code, the creation of different objects in Python, and how to render sites with flask. Specifically, we learned to create classes to store data with multiple attributes and methods as well as how to systematically go through code to find bugs to prevent wasting too much time.

What's next for Salute

What is next to salute: We want to use machine learning to recommend specific events users may be interested in. According to the recommender system, Users can also find veterans with similar military experiences to communicate with. In addition, more improvement can be made to create a better user experience for disabled users.

Built With

• css
• html
• python