Inspiration
We use Handshake on a daily basis to apply for internships and attend career events on campus. However when it comes to major-based personal projects students are often left clueless of where to start or how to do it. TerpLocal was created with this idea in mind because it would guide students along this process while also helping small time businesses.
What it does
Our website is designed to enable local businesses in the College Park community to post projects related to their work for students on campus to complete in return for rewards. Students can learn to apply their knowledge from class in a real-world setting, while businesses gain valuable connections with students in addition to their work (a new website, logo, marketing plan, etc).
How we built it
We used ReactJS for building our website and functionality, and HTML and CSS to design it.
Challenges we ran into
Most of us were new to using Git and Github to collaborate with a team, so we spent time learning the basics and eventually developed a good rhythm of working on our own branches and pushing or pulling as necessary through Github Desktop.
Additionally, many of us proposed different methods of implementing our project (MangoDB, React.js, CMS, HTML). So we spent the first week thoroughly researching the practicality of these methods, and then debated on the pros and cons of each. We settled on React.js because it gave us a good opportunity to learn the basics of web development (HTML, CSS, JS) while also providing some basic tools (like components and props) that provided us convenient ways to add interactions and functionality.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of completing the frontend of the website, with basic functionality such as allowing the user to edit the tables and click through the different pages.
What we learned
We learned a lot about web development languages and frameworks, such as ReactJS, HTML, and CSS. We also learned a lot about using Github and how to share code as a team.
What's next for TerpLocal
In the future, we would like to work on the backend and have a database that works with the website to store user information. We would also like to design the CSS to be compatible on different devices.
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