Sprout

Sprout cover image
Guardian view of webapp

Inspiration

We were inspired by existing trading and exchange systems as well as the DubCoins program at DubHacks 25!

What it does

Our webapp is a gamified credit system for children, supported by parents/guardians. Parents/guardians can create missions (chores, work, etc) and kids can earn coins and improve their credit scores by performing these missions. In turn, kids can choose what to buy from the online store with their collected coins.

How we built it

Built around the PayPal Payouts API, we created an interactive and responsive webapp, so we can cater to mobile needs as well as web needs. The idea of gamifying and making child's play out of concepts like credit and allowances were interesting concepts we got to explore with.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into issues handling the database, such as managing real-time updates and ensuring smooth communication between the frontend and backend. Configuring schemas with Supabase was way harder than we thought. We didn't realize the permissions required on each layer to access certain parts of data, and it took hours of debugging to figure out how to deal with it. The PostgreSQL underneath really was annoying. We also spent a lot of time ideating on different stacks to use, initially starting with a Flask backend, but in the end we didn't use it.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of creating a functional prototype within a tight timeline and overcoming technical challenges. We're proud of having a good-looking well-functioning app after a short day of grinding. We are happy that our team was able to come together with our backgrounds in UI, front-end, and back-end to make Sprout a reality. There's definitely a lot of fine tuning to do but it's a great start.

What we learned

We learned how to collaborate effectively as a team, troubleshoot technical issues, and gained experience building a full-stack web app. We learned how hard it was to work with payments, especially with the large amount of possible transactions that makes many things like creating virtual credit cards and etc. very hard. We got to experience full stack development in a short period of time.

What's next for Sprout

If we had more time, we would develop more comprehensive social features that allow users to connect, share progress, and motivate each other, such as a group savings hub (designed but not implemented) where friends can save together for project, activity, toy, etc.