CheckedIn

Manages Registration at Events

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Inspiration

CheckedIn was inspired by the dreadful hours spent in line for events just to check in. Whether it be in an expo, sports games, or hackathon check-ins. We wanted to create a way to check into events without any forms by just being nearby.

What it does

CheckedIn allows organizations to create events and have users register. At the time of the event, once a user comes in proximity to the event, the check-in prompt will show with the ability to check in for the user. Organizers can add a prompt as well once clients are checked in to provide further instructions.

How we built it

We built CheckedIn by splitting the project into a front-end, back-end system, and cloud deployment.

For the front-end, we chose to use HTML/CSS/JavaScript with partial bootstrap to design a website that has a log in system and different pages for organizations and clients. We chose this combination because it is lightweight and it is the platform we felt like we could build and deploy the fastest with. Buttons and fields are then sent to the cloud with API calls.

For geolocation and distance between two points, we used an API called nominatim(https://nominatim.org/) to find the latitude and longitude for a location then use some math to find the distance between the point and a target point. Combined with MapBox API, the geolocation feature is deployed onto the web application.

For the backend, we used Flask to handle the API requests and paired it with dynamo DB with AWS to establish a backend-to-server relationship.

The code overall is deployed onto Google Cloud and all requests are handled through Google Cloud. As a backup, our team did set up deployment using ngrok on in the case that Google Cloud failed to run.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into some front-end API problems especially when it came to interfacing with the maps API. A lot of map and geolocation API options were paid so it took a while to find APIs that are free for our use. We did eventually find those APIs listed above and we were fine. Another problem we encountered was deploying onto Google Cloud. Setting up the Google Cloud and getting the program to run had various issues with setup and the actual deployment itself.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we finished close to a complete working prototype of a solution. We are also proud of our quick handling of AWS, Flask, and various APIs. As well, since it was most of our first hackathon, only one of the 4 of us was able to stay up the entire 24 hours

What we learned

We learned how to use a full stack deployment of an idea in the span of 24 hours. Team members learned how to use Flask, DynamoDB, and Google Cloud.

What's next for CheckedIn

We plan to implement possibly the SSH features in iPhones and Androids. As well, we can have the events system be a lot more robust like maybe sending forms or more robust information. Of course, more front-end beautifying can be done in the future as well.

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