Hobbybi

Inspiration

We wanted to create a kind of dating app that doesn't aim to generate romantic relationships but long-lasting friendships through common interests. Hobbybi is a play on wards with the "Hobby" part representing people's pastimes and "Habibi" meaning "my darling" in Arab to represent the bonds we want our app to create.

What it does

People can create an account on the website and specify some areas of interest they have and want to share. They will then be able to post projects they'd like to do with others and specify the topic(s) to which they belong. They can also view projects other users posted that match with their interests. Upon seeing them, they have the choice to follow or disregard it. If any misclick happens, going back to change a decision is always possible.

How we built it

The authentication part was done with the help of Auth0 to allow users to sign up to our website. We used JavaScript XML to create our frontend, Node Js with Mongoose for the backend, and a combination of MongoDB Atlas and Cloudinary for the database.

Challenges we ran into

We had many troubles throughout the hackathon, which is to be expected since we had to use programming language we had barely touched before. Centering a div, exporting code, and creating json documents were all things we had to figure out. The biggest issue we had was linking our frontend and database with the backend. The created profiles refused to appear on MongoDB Compass.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We might have face a lot of hurdles, but I'm proud that we never gave up until the end. We managed to fulfill some of the requirements we set for our projects, so this is still a win.

What we learned

Ambition is a hacker's worst enemy. It's tempting to have as many cool/useful features as possible but you quickly realized that time is not going to allow that. We had to learn what was essential to our project and what could be omitted. We also each got to familiarize ourselves with the aspect of web dev we worked on.

What's next for Hobbybi

We really believe this app could de some good for many people who don't know where to start to make friends. They might not have the time to join a club, so these kind of simple, possibly one-time activities could be a game changer for them. That's why we would like to keep working on it after McHacks and make it as good-looking and convenient as possible to attract users.