Turnout

GIF
Lumi the Lantern Animation
Landing Page
About Page
Discover Page
My Events
Messaging Page
Browse Organizations
Event Example (Letter Writing)
Needs Map
Create an Event template
Organization event hub
My group (organization)
My profile (volunteer)

Inspiration

We were inspired by the Dean's Year of Civic Leadership! We wanted to make a product that could address a problem we have faced. If you've ever signed up for a service event on SignUpGenius/Google Forms, received logistics via email, and heard day-of updates via text/WhatsApp, Turnout seeks to operationalize/organize the way that volunteers and organizations connect. Turnout streamlines event management, messaging, service hour tracking, and registration in one place.

What it does

Turnout allows charitable organizations to post volunteer opportunities and allows volunteers to find local opportunities near them. It tracks hours and makes it easy to sign up! The biggest draw in is the AI-powered Needs Map which shows local opportunities that need help the most.

How we built it

We built it during the hackathon. We decided on TypeScript and React built on Next.js for the frontend as some of us were familiar with using it already. The backend is comprised of a PostgreSQL instance with DigitalOcean. For user authentication we used Auth0 because it was provided for us and easy to use! DigitalOcean not only provisioned our database, but also let us host the application. We also obtained our domain name, letsTurnOut.us, through GoDaddy using the MLH voucher. Location services were provided by Geoapify where we used city autocomplete so the results show opportunities close to you. Our AI to create the map and track local needs was created through Google AI studio and is hosted by Google Gemini.

Challenges we ran into

Since this is each of ours first hackathon we each ran into our own separate problems. Ali has never used Google AI Studio before and in less than 24 hours he learned how to use it and made a great implementation with the Needs Map. I (Jay) ran into multiple challenges throughout. I had to learn how to connect DigitalOcean and Auth0 to our app. Navigating the UI of these unfamiliar applications was a steep learning curve and took a lot of time. Eventually I was able to set everything up and get it connected to our Github repo. One problem we ran into as a group was the idea for the AI. We had many different ideas on how to incorporate AI into our product. Many group discussions later we landed on the Needs Map which we believe to be a good indicator of need in the community.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As a team we are proud of how the product turned out as a whole. There were so many moving parts with our project so we were proud to get out an MVP finished over the weekend. Being our first hackathon, we had doubts that we could even produce a final project, let alone something we are proud to have our names on. We still have many ideas on how to improve the site and may continue to work on the site in the future!

What we learned

We all learned a lot through the process. I had never had to register a domain before for a website. I learned a ton about DNS and the process of purchasing a domain. Again, Ali got to practice with AI creation in Google AI. Vaughn got to practice requirements gathering and understanding objectives for the end product, and implemented a lot of those features on the frontend.

What's next for Turnout

After the hackathon, we still have so many ideas to implement to improve our site! We want to incorporate more AI features like auto-fill description when creating a volunteer opportunity, and automatic flyer creation to make spreading the word about your even easier. We would also like to add email confirmation for event registration and adding events to your calendar. We also have a little mascot named Lumi the Lantern! Francis is working on the finishing touches with it so stay tuned!