Pigeon | Devpost

Inspiration

The inspiration behind our nostalgic communication software stems from a deep appreciation for the beauty of bygone eras and a desire to infuse modern communication with a touch of the past. We aim to evoke a sense of nostalgia, transporting users back to a time when handwritten letters and unique speaking styles were the norm. By offering personalized, handwritten messaging options and diverse historical language expressions, we seek to create a platform that not only facilitates communication but also enables users to relive the charm and sentimentality of yesteryears. This venture is driven by a passion for preserving the timeless aspects of human connection in an increasingly digital world.

What it does

Pigeon is a nostalgic and memory-evoking social media communication app. Users can send messages in a personalized, handwritten style, adding a touch of individuality to their communications. Additionally, we offer a variety of expressions in different historical speaking styles for users to choose from when sending messages, bringing back memories of past eras. Users also have the option to send handwritten-style postcards to the person they are chatting with.

How we built it

Backend: Python, Flask, SQL, Selenium Web Scrape Frontend: Created React App with Tailwindcss and Preline (Tailwindcss UI Library). Utilities: For our font creation we used Caligraphyr (https://www.calligraphr.com/en/), for custom user fonts.
AI API: Dalle3 is used to generate our Postcard images. Cohere is used to rephrase user input and convert it into 7 different styles of old English to modern English

Challenges we ran into

We struggled the most with syncing our backend and frontend. We did not fully connect our main endpoints until last minute. Also with the implementation of Auth0 authentication. Generating font because Caligraphyr has no API support, so we had to use Selenium to download font pdf and upload font pdf. Another challenge was storing and converting the custom font and displaying on the web app. Designing custom styles for the post emails and messages to make it feel like paper and the old days.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the ability to work as a team collaboratively. We are also proud of the depth and the number of features we have. There are two main features, postcards for users to type in their custom handwritten font and rephrase with cohere into old (medieval) English and then take the rephrased English to dalle to generate a nostalgic image and then send in a bundled postmail frontend.

What we learned

We learned perseverance is key to build a create idea. We encountered alot unplanned challenges and had to make hard decisions to move on and prioritize the main features. And from the unpredictability within the time constraint, we learnt that being adapatibiliy and communication is key to get our project done.