StudySphere

Imagine garticphone, the game hub, but for studying. StudySphere is a study space where students are able to ask questions and put in responses to already asked questions to grow their knowledge.

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Inspiration

As a group of like-minded academic achievers, StudySphere is inspired by the goal of learning more efficiently. In response to the challenge given by the University of Ottawa, it is built to help students collaborate in their understanding of concepts in their field by creating a social platform to share or create questions and answers.

What it does

Studysphere allows students to pose their questions in flashcard-like models for the other users of the platform to answer. Then, these answers can be seen by all others to see the best ways to answer certain types of questions. The questions can be in whatever field or topic the user would like and can be sorted through with keywords to ensure precise practice.

How we built it

The front end of the application was made using HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap with minimal amounts of Javascript. On the back-end side of things, we made use of Python and the Flask framework to connect a database made with SQLAlchemy.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges we ran into was connecting the bootstrap to the front end. A sneaky little easily looked over mistake caused us to struggle with this but we eventually got it. Another major challenge we ran into was the sheer amount of self-learning we had to do. We were all relatively new to hackathons and web development and so had to learn a lot of material in a short amount of time. But, we are very happy to have been able to do so and created a functioning website.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As mentioned above, we are very proud to have built a functioning website with the limited amount of time and knowledge that we had. The fact that we were able to build something that interacts with databases, has UI and UX and has user authentication was so fulfilling. This was only furthered by the fact that it could actually help students with their learning and make a difference in their lives and careers.

What we learned

We learned so much over the course of this project. From learning CSS to Bootstrap to the way in which one could create a backend for a website with Flask and SQLAlchemy, we learned many concepts that could be applied to future endeavors. Although it may have been stressful, the environment not only contributed to technological learning but the learning of working with others.

What's next for StudySphere

For the future of the platform, we are looking to implement new features like the ability to add photos for handwritten answers, the ability to message others to learn more about their answers and the ability rate different answers and questions. This will let users take their learning to the next level and keep our app feeling social and inviting!

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