Turtle Budgeting Tool

TBT Logo
Design for Login Screen
Design for Signup
Design for Homepage
Design for Monthly Budget
Design for Spendings
Design for Popup
Design for Analytics
Design for History
Design for Account Info
Design on Phone
Firebase Authentication
Firebase Database

Turtle Budgeting Tool (TBT)

Inspiration

We wanted to develop something ocean-theme related, and try to win first place in the category of finance provided by CapitalOne. As we were brainstorming ideas, a budgeting tool came to mind. We did not want to make a complete finance app, as banking websites already provide that; however, what I found lacking was monthly planners that allow me to see ahead and think about where I stand with my budget when I'm about to make a purchase.

What it does

As a budgeting tool, TBT does the following:

-Display remaining budget for the month

-Setting budget plans for the month

-Spendings for the month so far

-Tracker of recurring payments

-Analytics

-History to see previous month

-Website containing links to ocean related charity websites

How we built it

We thought that a mobile application is the most practical for a budgeting app so Android Studio was used. Within that IDE, Java was the chosen programming language to write this application. Firebase was used for authentication of users and storing all the information on a database on the cloud. As one of the budgeting categories is "charity", we thought it would be appropriate to promote ocean related charity, so a hyperlink is in the app that leads to a website built on Visual Studio Code that contains charity sites. TBT is tested and ran an emulator, where a virtual device of a smartphone is simulated to run the app.

Challenges we ran into

Time constraint was a big factor. We could not make the initial prototype of the application UI to be as accurate, or up to the standard, that we desired. Regardless, we think it looks great for a starting point on the design. Having no previous experience in cloud and Firebase, utilizing those API's and support tools were definitely a challenge. Retrieving and uploading data to the Firebase cloud was difficult, but eventually was solved. The project demo does not contain every single element of the application that we wanted, as we could not code all of it in time reasonably. However, the core features exist to show proof of concept. The analytics were also difficult to compute and visually display.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Within the time constraint, we think that we have a prototype that meets and exceeds the standards. Being first-time hackathon hackers, we did not expect to create something like this, but we proved ourselves wrong (in a good way), showing that we are in fact capable as programmers and critical thinkers. Also, we're working towards a good cause of keeping the ocean clean; the user can set a percentage of their remaining budget at the end of the month to go towards these charities.

What we learned

We learned a lot about utilizing existing tools (such as APIs), front-end development, and problem solving. None of us had experience with app development, so it was definitely a fun learning experience that also felt very rewarding.

What's next for Turtle Budgeting Tool

Moving forward, we wish to finish and perhaps publish this application on the Google Play Store. Of course, we plan to finish all the wanted features, and make the design nicer (for both the mobile application and the website). Furthermore, we want to add additional ways of login, such as through Google or Facebook. If possible, we want to develop deeper into analytics, taking in previous history of budget plans and spendings. Using supervised machine learning, we can create a way to build models and predict budget plans for the users.