Inspiration
Prior to VTHacks, our team noticed the vast number of students who were searching for a team to work with via the "looking-for-teammates" channel of the VTHacks Discord server. We realized it was tedious for people to look through a long chain of paragraph-length messages, seeking out others they could see themselves working well with, so we used this as the basis for our project idea. We also noticed that three of the four members of our team had to travel to get here, and one didn't have a place to stay overnight, which prompted us to want to solve this issue as well. At last, we came up with the idea that would attend to all of these problems: Swipe Overflow.
What it does
While also being a play off the popular developer community forum and data structure term, Swipe Overflow is the Tinder for hackathons. Using a built-in algorithm, we match users with teammates attending the same hackathon who have either similar or complimentary skillsets, based on user preference. If students are in need of a ride or place to stay, our product accounts for this and matches them with people who are willing to provide support.
How we built it
This project integrates MongoDB Atlas, Flask, and Python for the backend, with HTML, CSS, and Javascript for the frontend. We initially used Figma to plan the layout of our website, then brought those designs to life with HTML and CSS. Simultaneously, we worked on the backend and later connected both pieces together for the final product.
Challenges we ran into
Due to time constraints, we were unable to implement our idea at its full complexity, so there are certain nice-to-have features that we plan to add in the future.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of the amount of work that we were able to complete within the allotted time, especially since half of the team had never participated in a hackathon.
What we learned
From a technical angle, our team strengthened skills in full-stack web development and gained familiarity with API integration and AI-usage. Outside of this, we learned how to be more proficient in brainstorming and how to work with new people.
What's next for Swipe Overflow
Swipe Overflow is at its very first stages, and there are an endless number of improvements that the future calls for. Getting the backend running properly is the main priority. We want to add a chat feature, where users are able to talk to each other through the website, without having to exit and communicate via email, text, Discord, etc. We also believe it would be useful to have a storage system for sharing team resources and ideas. Enhancing the matching algorithm is in the cards as well, and we would want to add the ability for users to provide feedback to facilitate even more improvements.
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