myriad. | Devpost

Inspiration

Myriad, our application, is built largely inspired by our empathy for the ongoing military conflict currently sweeping through much of Ukraine. We strongly believe we need to help serve the displaced people in Ukraine. Since the dawn of the conflict, over 160,000 Ukrainians have been displaced, and destruction continues to raze the war-torn land. Countless people are seeking refuge underground, and escaping to other countries, and in doing so further devolves the stability of the region. We hope that with Myriad, they will be able to find peace, solace, and the feeling of stability that has been unlawfully robbed from them. The name Myriad itself was inspired by our hope for the war to end: myr, the Ukrainian word for peace.

What it does

Our app is designed to be a hub for communication and resourcing for Ukrainians. A discovery tab helps them connect with neighbors through a messaging system, which supports the requesting system. Users are able to post requests on their profiles which will be shown to local users, who can try to provide assistance if necessary. This ties into the map, which we will explain later. So, having a messaging system will allow neighbors to get in contact with each other through the app and ask about the requests or just have conversations easier. They will also be able to video call each other if necessary. The dashboard shows the most recent conversations, posts, and most importantly, the current news headlines and any announcements the Ukrainian government makes. We implemented an active map that would show locations of local people who requested help in three tiers of urgency. This is color-coded with red being critically urgent, yellow being somewhat urgent, and green being least urgent. This color code is utilized throughout the app. Local resource hubs are also highlighted, allowing people to go pick up any resources they need when necessary. Once tapped, it will provide information including where and what supplies are available. Lastly, the profile page is where users create requests and posts to be posted publicly, and adjust their preferences and settings.

How we built it

We used Visual Studio Code as the IDE and collaborated with each other through the live sharing extension. We then proceeded with using Flutter and writing the program in Dart, for quick compatibility with all platforms. Each page was set up to respond to a tap on the bottom navigation bar, and Flutter Cards were set for each user on the dashboard. The layouts and constraints were created to match any size and type of phone, so it can be matched for those in Ukraine. The video review of the app is done with Wondershare Mockitt, where we simulated what the app would look like with a default profile.

Challenges we ran into

For starters, the coding language was quite new to us, and we had to learn the code from scratch while creating the app, which was quite time-consuming and stress-inducing. Learning how to use the Mockitt user interface was also a major challenge, as we have no prior experience with app design, especially not with this website. Thus, we had to spend a lot of time learning and working on the fly. It was also difficult to create an aesthetically pleasing minimalist design that would be user-friendly, and we had to tweak the layout multiple times.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are super proud of how the app turned out, especially how the pages connected to each other. It also looks very clean and clutter-free and we are also so glad that the code worked out in the end. We were also able to create a decent logo for our project, as well as slides that really breathed new life into the idea we had cultivated.

What we learned

Throughout this project, we learned a lot about brainstorming, since many of the problems we came up with were well out of our reach. We also definitely gained a lot of experience in interface design and application development, which is exactly what we came for.