Locus

Locus Logo

Inspiration

We are all college students from different universities with one particular shared experience: we struggle to find housing. We found that finding affordable housing that fit each of our unique lifestyles was a problem, so we came up with Locus, a web app for affordable, convenient living.

What it does

Locus is a platform for renters to find affordable housing that is specifically tailored to their needs and preferences. Oftentimes, we end up having to shop around to find the perfect apartment to rent; however, with Locus, this process is streamlined and simplified.

How we built it

We used a variety of technologies to help our vision come true. For the backend, we used the Django framework and a PostgreSQL database. For the front end, we used React. For deployment and management, we used AWS Elastic Beanstalk.

Challenges we ran into

A major challenge we ran into was harnessing everyone's skillset to the fullest so that each member of the team contributed in a meaningful way, but we were able to learn quickly how to work together effectively while leveraging each of our strengths. Another challenge we faced was planning out how to build the application. We found that some of the data that we needed was hard to come by, and we had to come up with creative ideas to see it. The final challenge we ran into was the time crunch we faced towards the end of the hacking period. We realized that managing time is crucial and should be made a priority from the start.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One accomplishment we are proud of was our teamwork and software development process. We set up CI/CD pipelines early which allowed us to test and deploy our code in an efficient manner. We also were able to cultivate synergy between our team members which allowed for very productive coding sessions. Another accomplishment we are proud of is our software design. We tried designing the frontend to be easy to use, efficient, and visually appealing, ensuring a smooth experience for users while helping them find properties to rent quickly. Finally, we are proud of the fact that we were able to learn a lot while having fun!

What we learned

Each of our team members comes from different backgrounds and joining together to compete allowed us to share many of our skills. We were all able to get our hands on some React frontend development, Django-based backend development with AWS, and CI/CD engineering. We also learned how to work together efficiently as a team, which is a lesson we will carry forward into the future.

What's next for Locus

In the future, we plan to make our application more efficient and precise. We aim to gather data from a larger variety of sources such as Zillow or Homes.com. Additionally, we also aim to add a social feature, where users can comment on properties to offer their opinions and advice to prospective renters.