U-Dorm

Inspiration

While here at Harvard my group and I couldn’t help but compare Harvard to our own university. There were similarities but the glaring difference was the fact that at our campus we do not sleep on mats on the ground. Although this is solely on the hackathon and not Harvard itself, it gave us inspiration. What if students could rent out college dorms? We got to brainstorming by adding to this idea, critiquing, and how we would execute this. We came up with the name “U-Dorm” as in A double entendre on university dorms and “you (u) dorm”

What it does

The goal of U-Dorm is to give current college students the ability to rent out empty dorms or student dorms. In order to access our application, you need an account linked to your school email/account along with your school id. This helps with the safety of the host and the university renting out the empty dorms. Also, by having your school account linked with your U-Dorm account colleges to customize their users. With U-Dorm colleges have the option to only allow their own students to rent rooms, select schools, or any schools. U-dorm will also let colleges set dates for their selection and choose to allow students to host. Users of U-Dorm have the option to choose rooms to rent and even host. There is a search bar to look for schools. It also has important information when choosing a room including the number of beds, pictures, and locations. They will also be able to connect with students and universities through a built-in messaging system.

How we built it

We built the main UI design in Figma. Using Figma we built 26 pages filled with images and texts that users can navigate through. These 26 pages include an initial sign-in followed by other features like an interactive map coded with HTML, a search bar, and a messenger. From Figma, we were able to use an HTML Generator in order to use other applications. We used a mixture of HTML and CSS to finish the UX and UI design. These applications allowed the pretty buttons and text we created using Figma to be interactive.

Challenges we ran into

In the duration of this hackathon, we have run into problems both technically and personally. In the beginning, we were planning to run this application as an IOS for the challenge. Our initial designs were formatted through that platform and a couple of hours in we came to the realization that none of us knew Swift, so we had to differ from the original pathway. Some people in our group only have beginner-level programming skills, so there were instances where we had to watch youtube videos. one of them being on instances in Figma. Although we watched many videos only so much information can be learned in 36 hrs. This resulted in individuals being fully responsible for some aspects of this project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were honestly really impressed with the number of items we implemented in our project. The number of features that gave our project a big boost was something that we are really proud of. More than that, we were all proud of each other and how dedicated we were to the hack. Each one of us honed our strengths and tackled this thing like a well-oiled machine. One of the greatest things we were impressed with was the amount of sleep (or lack thereof) that we endured. This hackathon really tested our limits in such a way that bonded us for a lifetime. Perseverance is never something to scoff at, especially since many of us were low on skills. This is truly an experience we will never forget. Lastly, the sheer collaboration between our members is astounding. There were some of us that knew very little about each other but by the end, we were able to familiarize ourselves with our personalities and skills in such a short time.

What we learned

Some technical things we have learned include our team members learning Figma, and learning how to exploit HTML files. Along with technical skills, we have learned personal skills that will help in many aspects of life like time management and damage control. The biggest thing we learned was assigning roles based on skills. Being in an event like this also humbled us, we have seen the competition in the job marketplace so we have to be competitive.

What's next for U-Dorm

A possible future for us would be to develop this thing thoroughly. There were many ideas unfulfilled, and so much work was untampered that we might see this thing through to the end. There’s a possibility that this could become a start-up. As for the group, the majority of us live on the same campus and will continue to support each other through the toughest experiences of our lives while also reminding each other to not take things too seriously. None of us truly know what is in store for us in the future but as long as we have each other, we can endure any experience, whether we choose to experience it or not.

Built With

• css
• figma
• google-maps
• httml