Inspiration

  • End-of-year holiday/round robin letters
  • Newsletter Format
  • The increasingly fast paced form of communication fostered by social media

What it does

  • Create newsletter-style documents for friend/family groups from submissions by group members
  • Users can create a group and submit updates on their life before set monthly deadlines to the website
  • After the deadline has passed, the website will automatically compile all of the submissions into a document with a newsletter format
  • The website will then release this document for all of the members of the group to be able to read

How we built it

Our application uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the frontend, Express.js to make the APIs and MySQL for the database.

Challenges we ran into

  • Working within a short time window.
  • Learning how to use MySQL and Express.js for the first time.
  • Ensuring the frontend and backend communicate correctly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Making a full stack app from scratch.
  • Learning new frameworks/languages.
  • Making APIs to send information back and forth.

What we learned

We learned how to build a full-stack project, with front-end, API, and back-end. It was our first time using tools such as Express, and MySQL. We also learned how to work efficiently as a team by communicating clearly, helping each other debug code, and managing our individual tasks with Git.

What's next for FlockTalk

Features to expand on:

  • Updates (Add rich text formatting / Categorize updates)
  • Media (Add image/video support)
  • Notifications/reminders (Notification when a newsletter is ready / Reminder to submit updates before the deadline)
  • Events/birthdays (Automatic event reminders)
  • UI enhancement: (Theme customization / Improve accessibility (Mobile-friendly layout / Multi-language support))
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