Inspiration
College life is demanding, and for many students, creative hobbies become casualties of hectic schedules. One of our team members experienced this firsthand: she struggled to maintain her artistic pursuits amid academic pressures, finding it increasingly difficult to stay motivated. We it's a universal challenge for college students everywhere. Creative outlets are essential for mental health and personal growth, yet they're often the first thing students sacrifice. We asked ourselves: What if we could transform hobby tracking from a chore into something genuinely engaging and rewarding?
What it does
The app allows users to log whenever they do a hobby activity like painting or knitting and rewards them through the gamification of their hobbies, turning just doing one's hobbies into a fun game to play rather than a chore to get through. Additionally, it also shows users an active list of hobby related events on campus that they can attend.
How we built it
We used firebase for the backend for real-time data synchronization, authentication, and cloud storage. For frontend we utilized react native due to its OS agnostic nature and easy testing capabilities.
Challenges we ran into
- Firebase Integration: Connecting our React Native frontend to Firebase proved more complex than anticipated. We had to carefully manage asynchronous data flows, handle authentication states across screen transitions, and ensure data consistency between local storage and cloud sync.
- State Management Complexity: Managing user state, badge unlocking logic, and real-time star calculations across multiple screens required careful planning to avoid prop drilling and ensure data stayed synchronized
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud of how polished our final product looks and feels and given that we started with nothing, its a very encouraging feeling to see just how much we were both able to accomplish.
What we learned
We learned a lot on best practices for coding out a project from scratch and how to use react native especially. Working with a real time database through firebase was also good as it gave some dev side experience.
What's next for Hammer & Brush
- Club Integration Platform: Allowing clubs to join the app so they can automatically log events as right now we have to manually do that in the backend.
- Expanded Tracking: Add photos to activity logs, detailed notes, project folders, and progress galleries. Let users document their creative journey with rich media and reflection.
- Physical Rewards: Partner with campus art supply stores, local businesses, and Purdue organizations to offer real-world rewards for star milestones—turning digital achievements into tangible prizes.
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