AETO

Organizing an event is scary and its easy to get lost. AETO solves this cleanly by putting all you need in one spot.

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Inspiration

Despite how efficient Hackathon sign up systems can be, I always felt as though signing up for things live in person is always a big hassle. You have to hold up a line, theres no way for the organizers to know if you're coming or not, and lastly, one of our teammates bailed out on us last second. While we were brainstorming ideas on what to do, I suggested to the group that we focus on problems that we had every day, yet it eventually struck me that the fact that events aren't as efficient as they truly can be is a problem for people like my friends and I who go to events. After some quick deliberation between the other ideas we've thought of and after building up some more concepts for this solution to the event problem, we eventually decided to go with the web app, AETO.

What it does

AETO is exactly what its name stands for, an Active Event Tracker and Organizer web app. A lot of features were planned in an advance on as to what we wanted from the app. The three we definitely wanted to get working by the end of everything was a working chat room, calendar that can be updated in real time, and a sign in system that made it mandatory that the user is near the event in question for them to be able to sign in. Other features planned included QR codes and scanners to identify if a person is attending the event or not, an intuitive dashboard that would allow you to keep all your events in one place, and an active user tracker on a map (a feature that may or may not be discarded if it becomes too inefficient). As of the situation now, a large portion of those features are not available on the current version of the app, however, account creation and the sign in system has been implemented and are ready for testing.

How I built it

A large portion of the hackathon involved my teammate David and I learning flask for the first time, whilst Dan would get a headstart on the project and explain things for us when we got lost. However, once I understood enough for the large basics of what our project would require, I was able to join the fray and assist Dan in smaller tasks. As we approached the middle of the event, I began to kind of delegate tasks so as to make up for my own weakness in not understanding flask as the other two members did. However, I had more experience in js in comparison to David, this allowed me to help build the project by helping him figure out how to get the latitude and longitude of the target location and the user location in order to calculate the distance. Other than that, I helped develop most of the concepts and concept art in order for us to have a better direction on what to head for. Additionally, I was able to point out any missing details that might've been unintentionally ignored throughout the entire process of programming.

Challenges I ran into

Not knowing flask in the beginning was a big challenge, it took up a large portion of the time and allowed us little time for the project itself. This was not the only case that lowered the amount of time for the project either, a good portion of day one was spent trying to figure out what idea we'd go with after brainstorming, luckily this was a bit easier to run through as we got a mentor to mediate the ideas we had and the one we liked the most, which was AETO.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm proud of the fact that it was the idea I brainstormed that everyone went with. I'm proud of the fact that I learned a new framework and that I was able to reuse python after four years of not touching it. I'm proud of the fact that I was able to learn a lot from the mentors, those who've graduated already, recruiters, and my teammates. And I'm especially proud of the fact that despite knowing that I was going into territory unknown to me and that even though we might not even come close to what we wanted, that I tried to go for something bigger than me and helpful for a lot of people.

What I learned

I've learned about flask, what to expect from job interviews, what its like to work in unmanned aerial services, how to play beat saber, that I know very little about the thing I love - computer science - and that there is waaaay much more to get into. Most surprising of all though, is that I learned just how effective caffeine can be at keeping you awake for 43 hours.

What's next for AETO

Its simple, we just gotta keep working on it until it truly becomes "the smart way to meet." We will continue to use the concept art provided in the image gallery to help guide us towards what we need to focus on. Moreover, my group members and I enjoyed working on the project in tandem with the events in the hackathon. Although working on the project was frustrating at time, we all still like the concept and know that we want to move forward with it. In fact, one of the members didn't want to share it unfinished so badly, that they kinda didn't even want to submit it at all because we already know that if it was finished, this app would truly be great for everyone.

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