Inspiration
With midterm season approaching, we found that it was difficult to plan group study sessions due to a lack of effective communication between classmates. In a large public campus such as UCSD, some lower division classes contain upwards of about 300 students yet it is still hard to find people to study-group with. Additionally, study groups tend to get off topic or splinter into smaller groups as people focus on different material, defeating the whole purpose of study-grouping. So we came up with Stakks!
What it does
Stakks is a web app that organizes the study-grouping process. To form or find a study group, students simply need to input the basics of their study-grouping plans (when and what class) and the app will filter out study group plans that fit their schedule. If no study groups suits their needs, students can create a study group plan for everyone else to see. These group listings can be made password protected or private. Students can either create an account or simply use the app as a guest.
When creating these plans, students are encouraged to list down main topics that they plan on going over. They list those topics down on a stack of virtual flash cards, called Stakks, that the web app provides. Stakks are essentially a stack of flash cards meant to guide study sessions and are meant to be filled by topics, questions, or anything that the user wants to go over in the study session. A user can make and share their own Stakks, but more importantly, they can bind their stack onto a study group listing. This way, students looking to study group can get a rough idea on what the study-group will go over.
During the study group session, Stakks can be used as a guide to focus down the session. Anyone in the study group can suggest edits to the Stakk. However, only the Stakk owner has full control of what gets displayed in a Stakk during a study session. Stakks can be randomized or ordered to fit the group's needs.
The Stakks system encourages planning and organization before study-grouping and collaboration and focus during study-grouping. The web app aims to make study groups more accessible and effective.
How we built it
This web app is based on the FERN stack, or Firebase, Express, React, and Node. We used Node, Express, and Firebase to set up a backend very quickly, giving us access to user authentication and databases. The front end was built using React components, and used axios to submit HTTP requests to the Node server, which then was about to query the Firebase database and send a response with the data that we need.
Challenges we ran into
We had very little experience building full stack web applications, especially needing to learn the basics of React and the specifics of Firebase and Node.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
The front end is very well designed, and put together nicely given the limited time we had and our inexperience using React. Additionally, the backend was very difficult to build, but still works nicely and smoothly.
What we learned
Using React for a large project, how Firebase databases and authetication works, and some of the intricacies of Node routing and HTTP requests.
What's next for Stakk
Ideally, we would implement the features we didn't have time to implement, including flash cards, better ways to sort the study groups, and other features to improve the study group experience. In terms of design, we can polish up the front end more, adding smooth transitions and better graphics to the site.
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