nextDorm

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Inspiration

Students living in dorms need to borrow things from each other a lot but don't necessarily know who has what they need or who lives on other floors from them. This tool was designed primarily as a way for a community of college students to share things with one another (make life easier) and get to know the people in their dorms in the process (bring together the student community).

What it does

First, you create an account with your name, email, phone, school name, dorm name, room number, and password. You will then be added to a community of people from your school who live in the same dorm building. You can then access your dorm's page where you can post item requests and respond to other people's item requests (which will also let others see your name, room number, and phone number so you can exchange your stuff).

We also added another page that shows all the names and profiles of everyone in your dorm so you can meet new people living in the same building as you.

How we built it

We built each web page using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. We used python and django to create accounts and for login verification, and we stored and pulled all of our account, profile, and dorm page information from our AWS server.

Challenges we ran into

We had a lot of difficulties figuring out how to use django and bootstrap together. We struggled for a while because every time we added the django framework to a page, our CSS would disappear from the website. We also struggled with creating the AWS database as none of us had experience making/using an AWS database.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have integrated the django component into our site for people to create accounts and log in. We are also happy that we managed to create our AWS database and display information from the database on the website and also add things to the database.

What we learned

This was our first time using django and creating a login page for a website. This was also our first time using an AWS database, so this project introduced us to new tools that will be useful in the future.

What's next for nextdorm

In the future, we want to have store a list of schools and dorms at each school in the database so that when people start typing in a school and dorm, the site can let you select a valid school and dorm. We would also like to add a community events page and a calendar where people in a dorm can share their nearby events with their new friends.