TEKRAM

Inspiration
My teammates and I all have things laying around in our dorms/apartments that could be reused and put into the hands of someone who needs them. Selling things online is hassle enough from shipping to picking from the overwhelming amount of online marketplaces. As students, the proclivity to get anything done disappears when going beyond the bounds of campus is involved. Tekram is a platform that allows students to sell goods locally and we've made every effort to make it convenient, safe, and student friendly.

What it does
Our program is an online marketplace for students where users can buy and sell items such as textbooks, clothes, furniture, etc. It requires a valid UTDallas email that the site will authorize to make sure only students can view the site. Another key function is that it requires the seller to list potential meeting places so that users can scroll through listings and have that information available while they're browsing, i.e. Starbucks, plinth, ECSW.

How we built it
We built Tekram using html, css, python and the web framework Django.

Challenges we ran into
We are all using languages (python, HTML, and CSS) that we were all using for the first time. We also initially had some trouble downloading and setting up the necessary framework and languages. While developing we were able to make the HTML and CSS files but had issues linking them, so the styling on the site is lacking.

Accomplishments that we're proud of
We were able to implement some of the key features like only being able to view the listings if you're logged in. Also we're very proud of the work we put into designing the user experience. By empathizing with the end user, ideating, and defining some areas that student lives could be improved, we believe that we were able to make the framework for what would be a very convenient and popular website.

What we learned
We all learned how to use html, css, and navigating Django for the first time. We also learned a lot about the design process.

What's next for TEKRAM
We are very eager to continue developing the website's features, including email authorization, a messaging system within the app, seller rating system, and the location selection on the listing.