Toyota Celestial Financing

Inspiration

We were inspired by the Toyota Financing Challenge and the celestial theme of the hackathon to create a website that allows users to input their financial information and receive a personalized financing plan to guide their future financial decisions. We also wanted to create something that helps young people make smarter financial choices as they begin their journey into adulthood.

What it does

Our website asks users for their credit score, budget, and income, then generates a customized financing plan. The plan focuses on each user’s information and recommends cars that fit within their budget. It also provides tips for making better financial decisions based on their results.

How we built it

We first used ChatGPT to brainstorm a color palette and generate starter code for the JavaScript and CSS files. Using those as a foundation, we built a program that collects specific values from users and calculates a personalized financing plan. We also customized the website’s appearance to match the hackathon’s celestial theme and added a bat animation to represent the Freetail Hackers organization!

Challenges we ran into

We faced several challenges while building our website. Since it was our first time using React, we had to learn how the framework processes data and performs calculations. We also struggled with syntax errors that sent us down the dreary (but educational) path of Stack Overflow searches and countless “Chat, why isn’t my code working?” moments. Collaborating through VS Code Live Share also posed some difficulties, as we were still getting used to working on a single file together.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that, as first-time React users, we successfully created a functional and visually appealing website! We also had a lot of fun as a group—debugging, problem-solving, and learning how everything fits together. We learned a lot from each other and would love to collaborate again in the future.

What we learned

This was our first hackathon together, and we learned so much—not just from one another, but also from the workshops offered throughout the event. We can’t wait to apply all the skills and knowledge we gained over the past two days to future projects.