UShare - campus umbrella borrowing system

Inspiration

We all have walked out of Bobst, looked up, and was hit by the fact that it was raining. Hard. If our friends aren't here, and our only solution is to either run all the way home or buy an umbrella from CVS, what is the correct choice? Being the generation that has been aware of climate change and sustainability from a young age, we all want to try our best in our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint -- and the best way to do that is to stop buying things that we don't need to. Our inspiration is simple, if we need something for only a bit and don't want to buy it, what do we usually do? Borrow it.

What it does

Our business structure combines backend logistics and an in-person accessible storage system with a user-friendly interface to simplify the process of borrowing from a user. Instead of entire complicated checkout process involving a team member, Ushare is completely automated. Simply put, we connect the user's profile with the umbrella that was taken so you can just grab and go.

How we built it

Keyword: super low-code stack

We went with the no-code stack. Our frontend system is entirely generated from the Figma prototype, where we set up the navigation and design layouts for all our pages.

All of these are later imported into Bravo Studio, a low-code platform that parses Figma prototypes and provides special directives to integrate Figma with any backend of our choice. Since Figma on its own doesn't have access to a Map API, we integrated an interactive map showing all the service locations visualized as markers. We also utilized a Google Sheets plugin to make requests to Google Maps API in bulk for the coordinates and street view images. This generates a runnable app on mobile devices.

The backend system is hosted live on AirTable, which is also a powerful, low-code system that provides extensive APIs for us to manage the data flow without building everything from scratch. We implement checks for overdue returns and host images, descriptions, and locations of where our services are available on campus.

Challenges we ran into

Since our idea combines backend, frontend, and hardware, a challenge we ran into was how to get it to integrate smoothly together. It taught us the value of having team members from different and diverse backgrounds so we could both do what we do best and also develop our abilities in a different skillset.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

First, we're all extremely proud of finishing this project from start to finish -- especially because it deals with a situation that we have all experienced. Beyond that, we are also proud of learning from each other's specialty areas in such a short time frame and being able to bring all of our separate backgrounds together to create something cool.

What we learned

Going through the entire process, we really learned the importance of being clear in the original ideology and to keep going back to it whenever we hit a wall. Although it was appealing to grow ideas in many different directions, ultimately we found that coming back to the roots was the most satisfying and efficient.

What's next for UShare - campus umbrella borrowing system

The mission of Ushare is to promote sustainability through a reduction of spur-of-the-moment purchases. As such. Ushare is not limited to just umbrellas, but can also be expanded to other items that people may need for only a short time. For example, charging cables. Additionally, we would like to bring this service to many other campuses and expand geographically as well.

Built With

• airtable
• bravostudio
• figma
• googlemapapi
• googlesheets