Volassis

Inspiration

The world is going through totally different times today, and there is more need to give back and help each other during these uncertain times. Volassis was born during the COVID-19 pandemic when so much volunteering was happening but not a single system was available to enable and motivate individuals to give back to the community. The project started ideation during my Sophomore year when I was volunteering with an organization for senior care called "Sunrise Senior Living", and all their records were manual. I started to automate the attendance system, and in a matter of few months many new features required for full online volunteering were added during the COVID-19 times.

What it does

The system provides the youth with a completely automated one-stop platform for finding volunteer opportunities, volunteering and get approved volunteer hours in matter of few clicks. The system was developed out of a need to improve the existing archaic email based manual systems, which make this process very cumbersome and time-consuming.

Why I built it

Volassis is a centralized system developed by Lakshya Gupta from Tompkins High School in Katy, Texas, who recognized the need for such a system while volunteering himself. Lakshya says, "I have the knack to recognize limitations in existing systems, and I feel almost irresistible drive to fix and improve them. With my passion in Computer Science and a good hold on several software technologies, I wanted to create an enhanced and easy-to-use volunteering system that not only made finding opportunities easier but also provided one-stop platform for all volunteer needs."

How I built it

I built it by starting off with designing the database tables in MYSQL. I designed several tables to track the users logging and give an analysis based off of this. Then, I started developing the REST API since this would be the backend of my project, allowing me to call functions to view the users logs and give analysis from the database content through the REST API function calls. After this, I starting developing the react native app and called the REST API functions to be able to keep track of the user entered data and view the database content through the app. And finally, I made a website using mostly HTML, Javascript, and Typescript in order to allow the user to see their logged in hours on the app through the website. The link to the website is volassis.com. Github repository link is https://github.com/LakshyaGupta/Volassis-REST-API/ and https://github.com/LakshyaGupta/Volassis-Mobile-Application/.

Challenges I ran into

Some challenges I ran into were initially getting started with the API, building an API is very tough in the sense that many errors occur when you first run the API. Another challenge I ran into was efficiently several new languages in a short time frame and being able to effectively deploy the project in a timely manner. I believe the toughest challenges of the project were being able to finalize the program, make the website, design the database table, and running REST API.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

What I learned

I learned several new languages such as React Native, Typescript, and js, which I believe will be truly beneficial to me when pursuing computer science in college and later in a job. Through this hackathon, my passion for computer science has greatly increased.

What's next for Volassis

Currently, 4 organizations are using my system for their volunteering needs, and I am in the process of contacting more organizations to assist them during these difficult times.