Stinder

User interface

Inspiration

As college students studying for our various problem solving classes, we realized the importance of having another person to study with when working on our assignments. While at the library, we realized that there had to be other students there studying the same subjects as us, however there was no way to know who or where these people were.

What it does

Stinder bridges the gap between students who are in the same class looking for a person to study with. How it works is, each student inputs their course name and students with alike courses will appear on each others radar represented by a pin. Students then have the option of messaging surrounding students about meeting up to work on homework assignments or studying for an exam.

How we built it

This app was built using Android on Android Studio. Our primary technology was the Google Maps API V2, used to plot user pins. Our backend was run by Firebase, of which we used the realtime database, authentication, and notifications. The application has full authentication which allows user information to be populated for map pins.

Challenges we ran into

One of our main issues was configuring APIs correctly. Comaptibility of API keys between SDK versions caused a lot of problems for us. Another issue was integrating Android design library elements and configuring their behavior correctly. Two of our members had never used Android Studio or Firebase, posing a significant learning curve from the beginning.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our authentication is fully functional and user data is stored correctly. Our app's main functionality is working as we wanted it to and its performance is strong.

What we learned

We learned how to overcome code compatibility issues as well as learning how to code as a group.

What's next for Stinder

We plan to keep working on the app in hopes of publishing within the next three months. Depending on Stinders popularity among students on the Iowa State campus, we have hopes of it spreading to other campuses nationwide.