Fast Friends | Pandemic Edition

A game where people answer situational questions which enables them to “match” their answers to other people, then get a short time to communicate with them to see if the connection still holds

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Inspiration

This app (inspired by Zoom breakout rooms) was created with a core human need in mind: social connection to each other. In light of the current pandemic, forming and maintaining human connection with one another has become an increasingly difficult task. We took inspiration from Prof. Cinda Heeren opening keynote. She touched on how completely different topics can be interconnected (superpixels with elections, personal background with computers, etc.) We came up with an idea of a game similar to The Test on Facebook to discover connections between people, where people answer situational questions which enables them to be “matched” to other people by determining how connected they are to each other.

What it does

Fast Friends begins with a quiz of situational questions, answered by many concurrent users. The users’ answers are algorithmically compared to find pairs of users with many matching answers. Those pairs are then brought into a chatroom for a chance to communicate with each other to build and strengthen their connection.

How we built it

A React app styled with Rebass and Tailwind CSS. The application utilizes Firebase Authentication to create and authenticate user profiles. The chatting feature relies on a database provided by Firebase. In addition, React Router, Rebass framework, Emotion framework, CSS animations were used to round out the project.

Challenges we ran into

Given the limited amount of time we had, it was difficult to execute some of the ideas that we had during our initial planning phase. Many of the technologies we used, such as Firebase, were also new to us. Although implementing a functional chat feature, as well as a questionnaire page that could be used to match people was a tall task, we managed to use our combined knowledge to create an app that is pragmatic and functional.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

App is up and running

What we learned

Javascript React CSS animations Git techniques Firebase Importance of planning

Built With

  • css-animations
  • emotion-framework
  • firebase
  • react
  • react-router
  • rebass-framework
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