Inspiration
Our team has a unique fascination with animals and nature. But what really inspired us was the discussion we had with a member of AWHC's team. We found out that wild horses are getting their land stolen from them and are being inhumanely rounded up. We felt that by tackling this problem, we could help a community that is never considered, animals.
What it does
Our app is a mobile app that essentially creates a virtual community for horse owners of the world. It allows users to upload pictures of their horses and share them with others enthusiastic about the horse community. These pictures are then used to create an image dataset of horses which can then be used to train a machine learning model so that the AWHC can easily recognize which horses are wild. The app provides a way for the horse community to engage with each other, all while helping benefit the larger population of horses from their fingertips.
How we built it
To build the app, we compartmentalized the project into two parts. The front-end and the backend. For the front-end we used figma to model out our entire user interface while the actual application was built in react native, JavaScript, and CSS. Even to access the camera we used Expo to allow for easier integration into the front-end. For the backend, we used Firebase to create an authentication system as well as a way for users to import pre-existing images of their horses.
Challenges we ran into
We had a few challenges that kept us puzzled for a while. Initially we ran into issues when our version control system delayed changes made to the repository causing some of our code to be lost in the merge. Afterwards, our greatest challenge became accessing the camera with Expo and integrating the front-end with the backend.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are extremely proud that we were able to tackle a real-world problem that has an impact on an overlooked community. We are also thrilled to have learned so much about version control, authentication systems, and accessing camera for user input.
What we learned
We learned the importance of creating and working on separate branches in Git to ensure no code is lost in the merge process. We also realized the vitality of having more people on the team because then the distribution of work becomes much more manageable and also more productive over the long run. This hackathon was a great learning experience for the both of us and we will definitely look back on this fondly as our first hackathon.
What's next for HorseHaven
HorseHaven has immense potential. Just within the original constraints of the app, we can finish the integration of the front-end with the backend so that the user experience is seamless. We can also work on making the databasing cleaner and more secure so the users are protected. On top of that, we can use an open source horse classification dataset to train an ML model ensuring that the users only post pictures containing a horse. On the grander scale, this project can be adapted to any animal community, dog lovers, cat lovers. Many people look for an outlet to share their pet passions and this can provide that.
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