The Reading Corner

Landing page
User's library of finished books and books they'd like to read
Technologies used and how they interact

Inspiration

Our coding project is designed to be a haven for book lovers, tracking their reading lists and offering tailored recommendations to fuel their literary passions. We aim to enhance the reading experience by fostering discovery and connection through shared love for books.

What it does

Our project serves as a dynamic reading log, allowing users to effortlessly record their reading history by inputting books they've read into our website, which are then stored in our database. Users can easily access their reading history through the "My Books" section. Additionally, users can receive personalized reading recommendations by entering a book they enjoyed, receiving similar recommendations from the same author.

How we built it

Our project utilizes React for the front end, Flask for the back end, MongoDB for our database, and also utilized Google Books API.

Challenges we ran into

We struggled in the beginning integrating our front end and back end - and all of us were working with new technology to an extent to complete this project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of quickly learning new technologies, with each team member tackling unfamiliar tools such as Flask. Our least experienced member successfully worked with their first API - generating recommended books based on user input on the back end

What we learned

The journey wasn't about the sweet website we built, but the friends me made along the way!

What's next for The Reading Corner

We want to add a user login system so everyone can hop on the site. Plus, we're looking to spice up the recommended books section, maybe throw in some suggestions based on what each user has been reading to make it feel more personal.

Github Repository

The Reading Corner

Built With

Submitted to

Winter Hackathon 2024

Created by

I worked to set up and structure our database and wrote functions to interact with it. I also helped build the front end using React and worked to connect the front end with the back end (Flask). I learned a new skill in Flask and gained more valuable experience with technologies I was already familiar with (React, MongoDB)!

Blaine Wissler
I worked on the back end by implementing Google Books API to retrieve personal book recommendations for the user. This was my first time working with an API and contributing to GitHub in a collaborative way. I learned a whole lot in a couple days!

AustinJHolcomb Holcomb
I worked on the frontend and backend, displaying the books which were fetched from the Google Books API, and also adding books to our MongoDB database. It was really good experience working on the frontend using React, and also figuring out how to utilize the functions on the backend which called to the Google Books API!

Jasmine Sidhu
Working with this team was a great experience, and I learned a lot! I worked on the Book logging feature in the frontend (React).

Modio Thiam