SkillUp

Inspiration

The inspiration for SkillUp came from observing how people picked up new hobbies and skills like baking, during the lockdown. We wanted to capture that spirit and create a platform where people could continue to challenge themselves, share their progress, and engage with others.

What it does

SkillUp is a cross-platform social media app centered around weekly skill-based challenges. Each week, a new skill is highlighted, with challenges of varying difficulty levels related to that skill. For instance, during a "Baking Week," users might encounter challenges like baking banana bread, sourdough, and pretzels, each progressively more challenging.

Users can participate by submitting their attempts through videos or photos. Friends can then review and approve these submissions, adding a layer of social interaction and accountability. Additionally, the app provides a chat function where users can discuss strategies, share tips, and connect over their shared experiences. SkillUp brings people together by encouraging them to learn and grow together through common challenges.

How we built it

SkillUp was built using Flutter for the front-end, which allowed us to create a smooth and responsive user interface that works seamlessly across both iOS and Android platforms. We leveraged Firebase for the back-end, utilizing its real-time database capabilities to manage user data, challenge submissions, and interactions. This setup allowed for efficient data handling and real-time updates across the app.

For collaboration, we used GitHub to manage our codebase, enabling rapid development and effective version control. The integration of these tools allowed our team to work efficiently, addressing issues quickly and iterating on our design to improve the user experience.

Challenges we ran into

We had issue with Flutter's dependency management, which caused some issues with compatibility across different platforms.

Getting cross-platform builds to work also required a lot of debugging.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are particularly proud of the user interface we designed. We are also proud of the ideas that we came up with and how unique our product is.

What we learned

Throughout this project, we learnt about cross-platform mobile development with using Flutter. We gained experience in managing dependencies and ensuring compatibility across different devices and operating systems. Most importantly we got experience building and integrating a full-stack webapp.

What's next for SkillUp

Extra features we plan to include is by adding more detailed resources to the home page to help users complete the challenges. This could include tutorials, tips, and community-sourced content. Additionally, we aim to expand the functionality of the friends page by allowing users to view and interact with their friends' challenge submissions. A leaderboard and streak of weekly challenges for each user would also improve ongoing engagement