Housewarming

This website is designed for community members to list items that they no longer want for free. These items will be easily accessible through the app and available to those who may need them.

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Inspiration

We drew inspiration from similar websites and apps that promoted local food drives and item donations. Our team, in creating our project, wanted to support those in the community who may not have had access to essential resources. Our goal was to create a simple and accessible web page that contained all the information a user would need in one spot. We hoped to incorporate features that specifically assisted people who could be struggling with housing stability or other situations and create an inclusive platform to simplify the exchange.

What it does

This project was made to support low income families by matching them up with donations for free through an easily accessible website. The user can make an account and search for items they need based on preset categories (ex. clothing, kitchenware, etc.). In these categories they will find donated items as well as images to pick out what they need. Once they pick out an item, they can view the profile of the person donating the item to reach out and find a way to obtain the item. From the side of a user that intends to donate, they would also begin with making an account and would be able to enter in information and images of the item they want to donate.

How we built it

We built this website using Visual Studio Code, using languages such as HTML/CSS and python. We also used the Flask framework within our site. Our main form of communication between team members was Slack and video calls.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into several challenges. At first, we were not using Flask for our project nor did any of us really knew how to use Bootstrap to make an interactive navigation bar. We had problems trying to implement those things. Once we started using Flask, we ran into several issues of merge conflicts and issues with the interconnecting classes/methods in the code itself. This caused us to be confused, but we worked through it while trying to lean on each other's experience.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Ashita: I am proud to have learned so much using languages I was not familiar with and to have collaborated with my teammates in an efficient manner that allowed me to learn a lot from them. Additionally, I am proud of the planning we did before diving into the technical details. Using wireframing models and discussing the potential stakeholders, risks, and feasibility of this idea was a key part to deciding which features it would hold. Kendra: I am proud that we could get the project to mostly work in the end using an unfamiliar tool to most of us. Mostly, I am proud of all the knowledge I gained using HTML and CSS. To add on, I am also proud of the collaboration that went on to make the ending result. Natalie: I am proud of how we all worked to collaborate while being remote. I also feel as if we all attempted something new this weekend that challenged us and pushed us out of our comfort zones at times. Overall, I feel as if I learned a lot from this weekend, both from the coding process and the workshops. Carrie: I haven’t really coded before, I only know some very basic HTML/CSS and I had some difficulty getting myself up to speed understanding even some of the most basic concepts. I ran into bugs but was able to work through them with the help of my teammates and mentors. I still feel a bit in over my head, but I learned a lot about git and using the terminal, how to run Flask, and I’m happy we got something to somewhat function in the end! I saved so many resources that I learned about in my bookmarks folder so I can access them later, and I feel like I have a better understanding of what things I should try to learn more about in the future.

What we learned

While creating this website, we learned about Bootstrap, Flask, creating and using virtual Python environments. Our hardest task was using Flask to create our projects because it was fairly new to all of us. We gained the knowledge at the Flask 101 workshop and thought that Flask would be a good tool to help build the website, which it was.

What's next for Housewarming

Future development of this project includes making more categories in the listing part, adding location-based searching, adding a volunteer profile to add safety for others when picking up an item, accounts and verification of accounts, and making the website easier to read and understandable by everyone.

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