HobEx

A web application to help people learn the hobbies/skills they want in exchange for teaching other people hobbies/skills.

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Inspiration

A few years ago I saw a wonderful guitar cover on YouTube that inspired me to try to master the guitar. However, over the past few years of self-teaching it to myself, my progress has been less than satisfying. I realized, when I compared my guitar-learning journey to my other instrument where I had a teacher to teach it to me, that I learned so much more with the teacher, and had more motivation to as well. Chatting with my friends, and with other members of my team, we found that a lot of people have hobbies or skills that they want to learn, but can't afford to hire a teacher. It's also really difficult to find teachers for some niche hobbies. However, we discovered that some of us knew how to do things that others didn't, and vice versa too. This inspired the idea for this app.

What it does

This app leverages the fact that since some people have polished a certain skill, and others might have polished a different skill, they can complement each other, and teach each other the hobbies they want to learn. During profile creation, a user chooses the hobbies that they are good at and the hobbies they want to learn, (selecting hashtags filtered by popular/existing ones) and the application matches them with other users that have selected the opposite. Users can communicate with each other through direct messaging on the platform.

How we built it

For front-end we used a mix of React.js, HTML, CSS and Javascript. For the backend we used firebase. We collaborated via GitHub.

Challenges we ran into

Combining static HTML and the React.js app proved difficult, as one part of the website was just static HTML. Connecting the database to the app was also hard as we didn't have much experience in that area. Basing most of our project on languages/frameworks we didn't know of was definitely a big hurdle, as it meant most of our time was spent learning said technology.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Finishing the registration, login process with database incorporation, creating a messaging function, styling the pages, and making pages in react. The chat server that was deployed to handle socket requests is also one thing we're proud of!

What we learned

We learned a lot about the React.js framework, collaborating on Github, and also linking the database to the application. Some of our team members who are new to coding have received hands-on experience as well!

What's next for HobEx

  • Further implement key features such as the messaging functionality and the matching algorithm.
  • Bug fixes for certain features.
  • Video + voice calling features
  • improved and responsive UI.

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