STEMx - STEM Exchange, STEM Explore, STEM Expand

STEMx is the first ever engineering rescource library and networking website for STEM students to exchange knowledge, explore traditionally difficult-to-access resources, and expand their skillset.

Comment

Inspiration

We were inspired to make this project due to personal difficulties finding access to resources we needed to explore the fields we were curious about. We both share a love of robotics, but as Computer Science majors we lacked access to the tools that would allow us to work on independent projects and further our interest. This opened a broader conversation about the limitation of accessibility in engineering. We wanted to break down the barriers that prevent curious students from exploring their passions in STEM: lack of connections to experienced professionals, fear of tackling the daunting learning curve, and inaccess to expensive specialized machines and tools. So we chose the Social Good track, with the intention of developing a website that solved these issues.

What it does

Our website allows students to search for engineering tools, resources, and softwares, and connect with an experienced professional or academic. They are then able to message them to ask questions and arrange a day to meet, where the experienced party will teach the student how to use the tool for their project. After the student is trained on how to use the tool, they can get that skill tag added to their profile by the experienced party. We also wanted to include a discussion section for troubleshooting and events section for exploring opportunities for networking and learning events.

How we built it

We built it using a React web stack. We hosted our backend on a Raspberry Pi 5, using mySQL to organize data and Express.js for our API. We used Axios and React on our front end.

Challenges we ran into

We had some difficulties with git and networking.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are both beginners - this is our first Hackathon, and we were not super experienced with the tools we were working with, so we are proud of what we accomplished. We are most proud of our UI, as we both enjoy design and put a lot of love and attention into our branding.

What we learned

We learned a lot about git and our web stack. We also learned that there is such a thing as too much caffeine.

What's next for STEMx - STEM Exchange, STEM Explore, STEM Expand

We hope to keep developing this project in the future, improving our website functionality, connecting with companies and departments, and continuing to expand on our vision.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates