UB Exchange

Inspiration

The exchange of peer-to-peer information on campus is decentralized. Freshmen, international students, and those not familiar with Buffalo are left to seek info through trial and error, which can be both daunting and inefficient.

What it does

We’ve created a platform where UB students can share campus-related information in real time across four main categories. This will make commonly sought out information widely accessible, and ease students’ stress and anxiety.

How we built it

For the frontend UI, we used React, React Native, React Native Paper and Expo. Our database is managed by Firestore, and we used Node.js as our runtime environment. Visual Studio Code was our IDE of choice.

Challenges we ran into

The challenges we faced were numerous to say the least. From agreeing on the type of app (mobile/web) we would make, the random errors that seemingly came out of nowhere, countless layout issues and declining morale as the night pressed on, we definitely had our work cut out for us. However, in the end, we were able to hold onto enough determination to fight through these difficulties and create a product that we can stand by with pride.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Although there were many challenges we came across, there were a few things that we could genuinely celebrate. The biggest thing is we created a full-stack, real-time social media app within 24 hours, which none of us thought we would be able to do. For the majority of us, this involved learning brand new concepts in a short amount of time, to the point where we could be proficient enough to make a fully functioning product. As freshman in the computer science program, we all are very proud of individual and collaborative efforts.

What we learned

Speaking of the things we learned in a short amount of time, this included how to build a responsive UI, create a backend from scratch, use APIs to connect the frontend with backend, troubleshoot buggy code, use git/repositories and rely on each others' strengths to achieve our common goal.

What's next for UB Exchange

The future of UB Exchange includes expanding our service to other universities, adding comments to promote discussion amongst students, direct messaging to help make new friends, and student-generated emergency alerts.

Built With

• expo.io
• firestore
• javascript
• node.js
• react
• react-native
• react-native-paper
• vscode