StudBud

Inspiration

Well, it all started in the deep dark corners of one man on this team. His disgusting addiction to swiping left had turned him into a zombie only capable of one thought. Soon after this outbreak, it spread to three other victims in this project. We decided to try and make an app like Tinder, but for finding study groups.

What it does

It takes information (such as, the classes you are taking, personal information, and study preferences) to match you with individuals or study groups that are also taking the same classes to help you find a study buddy. It will factor in things like proximity, time availability, preferred work environment, age and gender preferences, etc. Each person/group will be displayed in a column of cards, with the best matches at the top.

How we built it

We first designed which traits would be required for matching. Then, we determined how to weigh each of these traits. Afterwards, we looked into designing a rating system (on a scale of 1.0 to 10.0) for helping with the "ranking" system for finding buddies. We spent a considerable amount of time on thinking about the user experience and what the user should/shouldn't be able to do. We settled for a more pro-choice approach (where the user gets more say in sorting). For instance, they could filter based on some preferences (such as gender and age preferences). We then went into talking about the report system and ways that the user can rate or report other users who they didn't feel met their standards. This led us to a discussion of talking about selecting positive/negative tags in addition to rating their study buddy after a session. For instance, if a user was tagged frequently for being "Nice", that would appear on their profile when other users searched for study buddies. If a user had too many negative tags, our system would eventually warn the user that their rating is dropping too low. We decided to use a HashTable that mapped the Classes to a list of users and a list of groups. We also made a Hash Table for the user as well.

Challenges we ran into

Android Studio was definitely a steep (like Mt. Everest) learning curve. We had a lot of difficulties finding a good way to connect the GUI to the code. We also had problems figuring out a way to connect all the different pages together for a "smooth" user experience.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The app seems to be stable (albeit some placeholders). We just didn't have enough time to fully connect the code and data structure with the interface in Android studio. We didn't fall asleep for that long...

What we learned

YouTube has a lot of videos. A lot of them are bad and outdated. We learned a lot about Android Studio. Specifically, we learned a lot about how to design an app and how to link the pages to one another with menus, settings, and other goodies in Android. We also gained valuable experience working together as a group, where we had to make compromises to put together a vision for our app.

What's next for StudBud

Implementation of features that we did not currently have time to implement. We also look forward to flushing out ideas and working in Android Studio to successfully connect our data structures and operations to an enjoyable user experience. Obviously, our app relies a lot on user participation and a sizable initial user base. When we finish refining the application to a consumer-friendly state, we will look towards volunteers to try our app.