Inspiration
Omegle was an anonymous chat app that focused on the beauty of living in other people’s world. Users could talk to other users anonymously without an account via both text and video. However, it was recently taken down due to various legal and safety concerns. We wanted to make an app like Omegle that’s both safer and more inclusive, more specifically, by limiting signups to only those with .edu email addresses. That way, only college students are able to use the app.
What it does
Students can sign up for the site with their email address and add information about their major, graduation year, and interests/activities. They can then enter the chatroom and they are placed in a waiting room until another student is found. The two students are placed in a private channel that gives information about the user but avoids personal details. There, the two students can chat until one of them gets bored.
How we built it
We used React for the frontend, Next.js Serverless routes in Node.js for the backend, and MongoDB to serve as a database for user info. We also used Socket.io to create a websocket server and handle numerous connections at the same time.
Challenges we ran into
We originally wanted to use the Mongoose ORM for interaction between Node.js and MongoDB. However, Next.js and Mongoose aren’t compatible, so we ended up having to use a different library for database connections. We also had trouble coming up with an appropriate color scheme, but we ended up deciding on one we all liked.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of collaboratively resolving issues with MongoDB and Next.js despite that it was our first time learning it. We managed to get the networking between different users to work (for the chat), and we were about to refrain from using MongoDB due to code issues but we fixed them. Two of our members have never attended a hackathon before and they are very proud of lasting the entire time and greatly contributing to the project.
What we learned
We learned how to connect a MongoDB database from the backend to the frontend. We also learned how to connect lots of users and send data between them using Socket.io.
What's next for CollegeConnector
Our main goals for the future of this app include a better and cleaner UI, chat moderation, and an option to save chats with a user. We also wanted to have more detailed school information such as full names and locations.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.