The Eventosaurus

Inspiration

Our team took inspiration from our own friendships, more specifically, how dry hangouts seemed to get without a plan. Finding an event that was still ongoing and near us always felt like an investigation that would take longer than the actual hangout! We wanted to make that process easier and more accessible to users looking to get together or simply see what's in town.

What it does

Eventosurus allows users to create and view events around their area, showcasing these venues as pins on a map.

How we built it

We split the team primarily into backend, frontend, and design, but we all dabbled and collaborated in different parts of the project. We began by working on basic functionality and design mock-ups to build the skeleton of the entire project, which created a great foundation to work off of. After connecting the frontend and backend, we refined certain features, ran tests, and polished the UI and design.

Challenges we ran into

-Our team had minimal experience with MongoDB and struggled to figure out MongoDB Atlas to make requests to the database better.
-Creating the function where the user can adjust their pinned location before submitting their event was a challenge unlike anything we'd seen before.
-A lot of our time was spent trying to deploy the application, which didn't end up happening.
-Despite our efforts, we were unable to implement animations for the side flyout whenever a pin is selected.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

-Creating a functional backend that effectively holds data with MongoDB and has a “search” feature for the user, our first-ever attempt at such a thing. -Understanding and implementing the Leaflet map and pin system.
-Having a form system that allows users to drag and drop their address pin to a specific coordinate.
-Designing and building a polished, meaningful user interface and experience.

What we learned

-How to make queries and aggregations with the MongoDB database, and how some features are made, such as the search autocompleter and MongoDB Atlas' process automation.
-How Leaflet and its pin system work.
-Gained a deeper understanding of MERN stack's functionality.

What's next for The Eventosaurus

Continuing to work on The Eventosaurus means adding features that were outside of our initial scope, such as:
-User login & identity verification,
-Location validation,
-More robust search algorithms,
-Community & social features,
-And so much more!