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MongoDB was used to handle form submissions
Beginnings
Our team of four first-time hackers was formed with a dual purpose: to have fun, and to learn. On the first night of VTHacks, as we began to become familiar with each other and discussed ideas, we established our collective mentality about the hackathon; we wanted something that would challenge us and require new knowledge, but most importantly, something that each of us would enjoy working on.
Project
We decided that we would address public transportation in Blacksburg, an issue that interested all of us. We began by investigating the official Blacksburg Transit website, and identifying useful features relating to public transportation that we could implement of our own accord. Van suggested a feedback form for passengers to fill out, and a myriad of other ideas followed. Not have any website or app development experience between the four of us, we began with Android Studio.
Challenges
Each of us were completely new to website and app development, let alone in a timed, competitive environment. This is what brought our team together, but also what troubled us. We laid out a plan to use React for frontend, and Flask and MongoDB for the backend. Flask was especially valuable, because Python was our strongest language. However, React, and learning JavaScript as a whole, proved to be a bit unreasonable for a 24 hour time period. In the end, we laid an extremely strong foundation, but we spent so much time learning that there was little left to code and bugfix.
Horizons
In the end, we took no issue with this. We accomplished our original goal: we learned about each other, about software, and about coding. While the pressure was frustrating, the overarching experience was wonderful. For a relatively inexperienced team, we are proud of what we have done.
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