Inspiration
Ever notice Robarts commons filled with lost goods left neglected? Ever leave your items somewhere on campus and can't seem to find a central place to look for where they might have been left by others? With the busy lives of students around campus, we made a web app for the students of UofT to post listings of found lost goods. Students can securely log in using their UTORID and interact with listings to claim their lost goods.
What it does
UFound is an online platform that allows UofT students to post the lost items they see around campus so that their owners can safely retrieve them.
How we built it
Our team used ReactJS as the framework along with Firebase for the backend. We included Firebase authentication, Firestore Database and Firebase image storage into our web application.
Challenges we ran into
We were total beginners at using Firebase and ReactJS. Having no prior experience, we struggled at first but with teamwork and effort we were able to figure out and implement our ideas.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are very proud of the completeness of the app. Since this is an issue we care about and benefits UofT students, we wanted to make it as realistic as possible. User-friendliness was a big part that we considered in our building process. We implemented many features such as authentication system, login system, minimalistic layout so that our users can easily and safely navigate around the website.
What we learned
Teamwork, time management and the art of never giving up! We faced lots of challenges and lots of iced coffee along the way (we spent so long trying to get routing to work) but no matter the obstacle, we always worked together, passed ideas around and got the code to at very least compromise with us. In the future, we know that working together as a team and making sure everyone is on board and on track is how we can make projects that last.
What's next for UFound
We initially wanted to implement a user messaging system within the app itself but it fell through because it seemed like too difficult of a challenge for us to implement. If we were to continue working on this project, we would definitely work on a user interaction element of the web app instead of directly just linking an external mode of communication.
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