Inspiration
We were inspired by a recent issue within Wellesley College where longtime employees were being replaced by non-union workers. We wanted a product that acknowledges the staff’s value and contributions to the college.
What it does
Reliant on the Wellesley honor code, students input a compliment, or a message of gratitude, for a specific person on our site. Every week, 10 messages are chosen at random and are sent to their respective person via text message or email.
How we built it
We used Bootstrap to build the website, working with HTML and CSS. We also attempted to use Flask to create the database of messages and Twilio to send the texts/emails.
Challenges we ran into
We had only some knowledge of Python and virtually none in HTML, CSS and building a website, so we spent a lot of time learning and experimenting with different methods. On top of Bootstrap, we also tried Flask, jQuery and Django.
We also had difficulty figuring out how to convert the input (messages) into python code which would ultimately be stored as a JSON file. We tried to use Flask for this.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We built a (cute) website despite no prior experience.
What we learned
We developed a better understanding of HTML and CSS, as well as how to use tools like Bootstrap that helped a lot with setup and formatting. We learned how to work with stylesheets both externally linked and local, learning, for instance, how to modify them to our needs.
What's next for Wellesley Thanks
After working out the Flask/input aspect and fleshing out the directory, we also hope to include a search component that allows students to look up staff members based on tags like location. Though this site is Wellesley specific, we feel like the idea could be expanded to other college campuses as well.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.