Common Ground

Tired of awkward tension between you and your roommates/frenemies about who owes what? Common Ground is an easy and reliable expense and accountability tracker.

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Inspiration

Common Grounds was built on a whim last night. As the photographer for Pearl Hacks, I never intended to submit a project, but I was literally struck with inspiration and infected with the spirit of creativity while surrounded by the hardworking hackers in the Great Hall. As a current on-campus sophomore moving to a large house with 5 other girls next year, I'm anxious to make a good impression and develop trustworthy bonds. However, I know that money is tight for college students, and I've heard many a horror story about neglectful roommates and late rent payments. To avoid this, I wanted to create a system to track shared expenses. I started it as a side project in the late hours of Saturday night and quickly realized that this could actually be a functional, valuable app for myself and anyone sharing space with loved ones.

What it does

Common Grounds simply tracks how much of a purchase is each group member's responsibility. This will be an agreed-upon amount before inputted into the site, as we want make sure everyone is cooperative and communicative before entering a transactional contract. The spreadsheet and corresponding web app tells you what the item purchased was, who the money should be returned to, and which house members owe money. Then, each house member has a profile that summarizes the money they owe and the money they are owed. There is also an entry for each expense to ensure transparency and accountability for both parties.

How we built it

Common Grounds was built entirely with simple Excel functions to optimize usability for a non-tech background. A simple prototype of a web app was built with Canva Code that pulls from this Excel sheet and serves as a front-end for my humanities roommates (and even myself after a long day of dealing with code & spreadsheets!)

Challenges we ran into

My "beta testers" (roommates) had differing opinions regarding which features to include and how in-depth to build out the product. I'm proud of our ability to reach compromises and accommodated different information types that individuals wanted to see.

What we learned

Building projects is fun, and tech gives us the capacity & skills to put the ideas we want to see into action. More specifically, we couldn't find the app we were looking for online, so I made it for us. Be the change that you want to see in the world!

What's next for Common Ground

I'd love to deploy a site that has a profile option for various houses to use to their needs. I'd like to make it more accessible, editable, and flexible for individuals of all backgrounds so they can use it to maintain peace and form healthy relationships with those they live & work alongside :)

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