Datasets:

yiyic

/

devpost_project_description_1

like 0

https://devpost.com/software/folkus

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Stress out from the hell week. How can we study more efficiently? What it does: - Base on the specific courses you are studying for, recommend study time for you to focus. Allow user to set a timer, so the user can stay out of their phone while studying. How we built it: - Trial and error. Pain and tears. Good teamwork. Android Studio and Java. Challenges we ran into: - Code crashes because Android studio automatically generates replicated files. And a lot more. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Establishing life-long brotherhood. What we learned: - Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. But we truly learn a lot overcoming these problems. What's next for Folkus: - Make suggestion time based on user input, add calendar, create better interface... First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/whatsgood

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We were inspired by the MenuNER paper, which provided a state-of-the-art method for Named Entity Recognition (NER) of menu items in Yelp reviews. What it does: - whatsgood? uses NER of menu items in Yelp reviews to summarize any given restaurant's menu and how people feel about the items on the menu. How we built it: - We had a Firebase and Cloud Run-hosted Python Flask application to build and host the site with. Our data wrangling was done in Google Colab (using SpaCy, Chars2Vec, and Scikit Learn). From those notebooks, we trained our models and migrated them to the backend. We scraped data from Yelp using libraries like requests and bs4, and received other important details from the Yelp API. Challenges we ran into: - Preparing the data we found, especially the Yelp review datasets we used, took extensive amounts of time to process and often failed due to small errors.\nSince Yelp's API only allows 3 reviews to be parsed, we had to scrape the remaining reviews in order to have enough data for generating the menu. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of being able to fully use the power of Yelp's Fusion API, even with the necessity to scrape data from the website due to API limitations, as well as our complete ML pipeline which generates our summarized menus What we learned: - We learned the importance of saving models to avoid reinventing the wheel and redoing tedious training and encoding processes. \nWe also learned that sometimes we have to think beyond the API to succeed in our goals. - Note about demo website:\n As of 8:30am Sunday, we are still publicly displaying the version of the website from Saturday night. We will display the most up-to-date version during our demos. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/racertype

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We built this following a series of tutorials with the purpose of learning and practicing the skills gained from the React workshop provided. What it does: How we built it: Challenges we ran into: Accomplishments that we're proud of: What we learned: What's next for RacerType: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/wakeup-5tizen

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Our inspiration was to help drivers who have to deal with long hours of driving and students who had to study long hours and put their health and future at risk. What it does: - Wakeup is an app that helps users to stay awake during an all nighter. When the app is turned on, the user video is captured and analyzed using google ML api kit. If the user goes to sleep multiple times it plays an alarm and if this continues to happen the app sends a message to a friend who can come over and wake them up or ensure that they wake up for the test/presentation the next day. There is a driving mode in the app too which can detect if the user is constantly closing his eyes and if it happens multiple times then it can call 911 and let them know that the user is no longer in control of the vehicle. No matter how much you plan, you will eventually pull an all-nighter at one point. It is a mitigation strategy to help students stay awake during their exam, or keep drivers on the road safe late at night. It’s main social impact is to prevent accidents from drivers on the wheel who could be impaired in many forms. How we built it: - We built the project using Flutter software development and dart language. We also used the google vision API. Challenges we ran into: - Integrating google ML kits due to depreciation and compatibility issues of API's. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Succesfully building the project and deploying it on android devices.\nUsing Google Machine Learning API's in apps. What we learned: - Connecting google API's and integrating android and ios apps with it. What's next for Wakeup: - Finding more innovative uses for eye tracking technology that people be more productive and safe just as we have currently aimed to do. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/paymeback-discord-bot

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Imagine a simpler way to split expenses on a trip. This past summer, our friend group took several vacations to various parts around the U.S. One of the challenges faced on these trips was how to effectively, and efficiently, split the cost of larger expenses among all of our friends. As such, we decided to implement a tool that can minimize the amount of transactions needed to split the expenses evenly for all people on the trip. What it does: - The discord app that we created can be used in a Discord server. It can be given commands to start/end events, and if there is an ongoing event, transactions can be added to the event. Users can react to the event start message to be included in the calculations. Here, the bot keeps track of the amounts and who paid. Once an event ends, the bot will send a direct message to each person in the event telling them which transactions to complete so everyone pays each other back. How we built it: - We built this app with JavaScript in Node.js, using the discord.js library to use the Discord API. Challenges we ran into: - One challenge was learning how to effectively use Discord’s API, since neither of us had used it before. In particular, obtaining the list of users that reacted to a specific message was more challenging than we expected. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We’re proud of learning how to use the Discord API quickly to build this application. The application can currently run and function correctly. What we learned: - We learned how to use the Discord API in JavaScript, and we learned more about how to write server-side Node.js applications. What's next for PayMeBack Discord Bot: - One feature that we didn’t have time to implement was adding in the ability to delete a transaction that was submitted by mistake. Also, the current implementation only stores the transactions and events in-memory, so a proper database should be used to avoid potential data loss. With these two features, this application should be ready for use in our Discord server! First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/airvis

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Description: - AirVis is a webapp that visualizes air quality data from any inputted location. It uses the google maps API in order to geocode the inputted location and then the Breezometer API to gather air quality data. Numerical data is presented in a interactive table, in which you can learn more about the pollutants in the air, as well as an air quality for each pollutant. Numerical data is also visualized as micrograms of pollutants per liter of air. Intentionality: - As the climate crisis continues to worsen, I think it is important to present pollution data to users both at a high level and a low level. My intention was to create a useful tool that could show the climate crisis in various regions around the world, as well as being a general air quality query. Significance: - Although solving the climate crisis is not something I am able to do at this hackathon, I think the least I can do is to show people just how polluted some areas of the world actually are, as well as display how some places around the world are doing pollution control correctly. Technical Depth: - Admittedly, the only real technical challenge of significance here was figuring out the API calls and making sure that I was receiving the correct data. The rest of the work was just building a presentable website. Also resizing bootstrap columns. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/bin-it-u47zmr

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - It's a sweltering day in Atlanta, and you just finished drinking your plastic water bottle. You desperately search for a recycling bin but can't seem to find one anywhere in sight. Running late to your hackathon, you pull out Bin It to see where the closest recycling bins are and where they lie on your route. As you approach your destination, you are happy to recycle your bottle and spot a new recycling bin across the street. Pinning the new recycling bin for others to see, you are happy to be promoting more sustainable habits in a user-friendly manner.\nBy providing convenience we nudge people into recycling more while making it more accessible. However, more importantly, we hope to make people kinder to the Earth while having fun with it. Our goal isn’t to combat radical problems such as climate change, but to cultivate deep and authentic care for the environment, all while being easy. What it does: - Our project allows users to find nearby recycling bins in a convenient manner. Bin It decreases littering and fosters a culture of impactful individual behavior that is caring for our environment. How we built it: - The primary tools involved in the development of our web app were React and Firebase. React allowed us to work more effectively together as a team by breaking up the project into smaller subcomponents. Firebase allowed us to abstract away much of the backend and instead focus on the actual functionality of the app. This approach maximized development speed and allowed the team to implement all of the features that we intended to. Challenges we ran into: - The team began the project with only a vague understanding of the technology stack and had to learn much of it on the fly. This lack of experience forced team members to work on what seemed like straightforward features for many hours. We also ran into several errors — specifically with authentication — that were left unsolved, even with mentor support. Our team was forced to abandon some features we were excited about because they were taking up too much time. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We built all of the core features we expected to see in our application. We went from a team of developers with relatively little knowledge about web development to building a fully functional web app and improving to a much stronger team. \nMost of all, we are really proud of the teamwork and collaboration that was fostered in our team. By building each other's morale and helping each other over hurdles, we were able to debug big challenges. What we learned: - Prioritizing components of the project, even if that meant pivoting away from parts we put a lot of effort into. We definitely fell victim to the sunk cost fallacy. Our team learned how to manage a steep learning curve under strict time constraints. What's next for Bin It: - Bin It is not going anywhere! In the future, we want to expand upon it via new computer vision and social networking features (reward points) that would improve the incentive for users to use the app and improve their environmental habits. Also to improve on ease, we developed an idea for quick and easy notifications that are set off as the user is near recycling bins. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/chemical-equation-balancer

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We wanted to make a hardware hack that would allow for inputs to be provided by a physical sensor, in this case a joystick. What it does: - The calculator takes in user input using the joystick to navigate through the periodic table of elements, and it balances the chemical equation built by the user using linear algebra. How we built it: - All of the physical components (joystick, LCD display) are wired to an Arduino and some breadboards. Challenges we ran into: - It was difficult working through our experience gaps, especially with the type of project we chose being so technically complex and involved. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We're proud to have the RREF algorithm functional and to have the physical component semi-functional--it just needed more time. What we learned: - We learned a lot about programming as a group and the challenges that comes with that, in addition to having two group members starting to learn C++ from scratch. What's next for Chemical Equation Balancer: - Hopefully to get it into a cleaner looking body! First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/carousel-743ny6

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Our team drew inspiration from the fact that many professors and TA's try to organize study groups for their classes, but they are rarely effective. We thought a student-centered, web-app approach to this concept would create more opportunities for students to find and stick with study groups. Also, we noticed the highly competitive academic culture here at Georgia Tech, and believed that this application would thrive. What it does: - Carousel allows users (students) to create an account and specify the courses they are taking. Then, it allows the user to search for a random study group based on course, date, and time, in which the user will be placed with other anonymous students. Carousel provides a study location, and from there, the rest is history. How we built it: - We designed Carousel as a web-application, with python powering the back-end functionality and HTML, CSS, and javascript on the front-end. We delegated tasks throughout the project, switching roles back and forth between front-end/back-end developer, researcher, etc. Challenges we ran into: - We ran into challenges while fetching data from input fields contained in the User Interface, and sending this data to the back-end side of the server. The data types were often complex, such as dates or times, and this accounted for plenty of challenges, especially while converting data between two separate languages. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of a very nice and aesthetically pleasing User Interface, along with the fact that we developed a mostly functioning program in just 36 hours. What we learned: - We learned that a lot more goes into creating a web application from scratch than one would think, and unexpected challenges can present themselves which prove to be the hardest throughout the entire project. What's next for Carousel: - We plan to offer functionality for other categories, not just studying, such as pick-up sports or other recreational activities. Also, we plan to perfect our User Interface, continually test for bugs, and add more features relating to a user's account options and personalization. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/vacpass-awmvgy

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - It has been over a year and a half since the first COVID outbreak in the United States, and chances are we will need to learn to live with the virus for many years to come. Vaccination, without a doubt, is currently the most effective way to combat the virus is through vaccines. We got our inspiration from a privacy law class at Georgia Tech this semester; a great portion of the class focuses on vaccine passports and how to design them to maximize both security and privacy. - The two biggest challenges of vaccine passports are that similar systems tend to be centralized, which greatly lacks privacy, and the lack of transparency also implies less security. In an effort to come up with a solution that is the best of both worlds, we decided to employ blockchains as a way to implement the vaccine passport. Blockchains are inherently more transparent than a centralized system, and it is also extremely challenging to fake records on a blockchain by design. Given that many businesses now require individuals to be vaccinated and that there will be more and more people attempting to fake vaccination records, our product will prove integral to our new way of life by providing a reliable and secure vaccine passport to individuals and businesses. What it does: - VaxPass allows users to seamlessly and securely verify the COVID vaccination status of others. After signing in on an iPhone, each user is given a unique QR code representing their vaccine status. Users can either scan another person's QR code or can display their own QR code to others for verification of vaccination status. One of the most significant and important features of the app is that the only three pieces of information it shares about a user is a true/false value indicating whether the user meets vaccination requirements, the user's name, and the user's birthday (without the year). We do not display information about when the vaccine was received, what brand the vaccine was, how many doses the user has received, etc. because these are ultimately irrelevant to the other party regarding whether this person has been vaccinated or not. This also helps maintain maximum privacy as well as maximum efficiency. Information is stored either on the device or on an Ethereum blockchain after going through encryption.. How we built it: - The group leveraged FirebaseAuth for Authentication and Firebase Firestore for storing user information. Google Cloud Platform powers the backend server, and we use the Python Flask framework for our API. In addition, our blockchain is built with Ethereum Smart Contracts and the Solidity language. The iOS app is written with Swift on the Xcode IDE. The iOS app uses frameworks like UIKit to build components, AVFoundation to scan QR codes, URLSession to make http requests to the backend. We also used Figma to create lo-fi and hi-fi wireframes for the app. Challenges we ran into: - None of us knew much about blockchain technology prior to the hackathon. We first had to determine which technologies to use to implement a blockchain, then decide which frameworks to use for our frontend and backend, implement the full-stack app, and, finally, plug all pieces together within 36 hours. We also had to figure out how to encrypt data that went onto the blockchain. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We're proud that we created a functional blockchain! Despite being quite minimal, the blockchain was implemented entirely by ourselves from scratch, and through that, we were also able to fully understand how it functions. - We're also very proud of the fact that our idea is based on a product that promotes positive social impact. An app like this can potentially provide a privacy-aware solution for millions of people. What we learned: - The hackathon was an enormous learning experience for every single one of us. What we learned included, but is not limited to: What's next for VaxPass: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/caravan-travel-with-new-friends

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - The experience of traveling is something that everyone should be able to relish. People enjoy making these experiences with friends and family. But, we believe that anyone should be able to have a fantastic travel experience even just as an individual. We wanted to make sure that anyone who wants to travel should be able to have a great experience and meet new people! The days of complicated coordination are over. In an age where face-to-face interaction has been declining, Caravan exhibits an unforgettable solution. Let us take over and give you an adventure and the chance to make lifelong friends! And so, we present Caravan - an innovative new iOS app for social gatherings to extend to new heights, depths, and distances! - What it does: - Caravan changes the way people think about travel. No longer does one have to organize with friends or plan extremely ahead. Caravan offers the opportunity for people to find a trip and join a “caravan” of new people across the world in a travel experience. By bringing together different people in new ways, we can make a significant social impact - we are bridging the gap between social networking and real adventure. - With our modular and aesthetically pleasing app, users browse a dynamic catalog of available locations. After selecting a location, the user is presented with trips that are organized by approved guides. With a glance, users can browse various types of upcoming trips within places across the world. With diverse dates, exciting trip headlines, and popularity metrics, any user can express interest in any trip they desire. They can then view more trip details, contact the guide with any questions, and sign up for further communication and updates through the app. Adventure is one click away! Bringing people together has never been done in a way that combines social connection with a quality travel experience in the way Caravan does. After the trip of a lifetime, our users bond with their trip mates, and they have grown not just their memories, but their friends! And who knows, you might just meet your future partner too! - Other transformative features of the Caravan app include dynamic profiles, where users can customize their profiles, keep and share records of past and upcoming trips, and show off cool badges they earn from making new experiences awarded by Caravan. - Caravan also takes social networking to a new level, with Caravan’s community blog center, called Campsite. Here, users can share blog posts through pictures and stories detailing their adventures and encourage others to take the plunge! - Last but not least, Caravan provides a way for users to communicate. Whether it be questions regarding an upcoming trip, discussing local restaurants to visit during the trip, or even just swapping stories with a fellow Caravner, our app changes the way we think about traveling and makes it accessible and a reality for anyone. - How we built it: - We approached HackGT in a heavily engineering-focused methodology. Starting, we analyzed the participation packet and began to paint a picture of possible avenues. After completing our research period, the team commenced a brainstorming phase, where we wrote down possible ideas. These ideas held a wide range of topics to them and exciting software stacks. Next, we filtered down our thoughts through multiple filters such as our collective skill group, a niche in terms of topics, and overall enthusiasm for the project. After numerous discussions, the conclusion was made that we would pursue Caravan. Initially, we looked at creating a progressive web application but pivoted after looking at previous years' contenders. Finally, the decision was made to make the Caravan app through the SwiftUI framework. For our software, we utilized Object Orientated Programming and modular programming practice throughout our codebase. In addition, the team used git as version control to divide the problems into small tasks and seamlessly merge them. With our team breaking tasks into the smallest parts, we actively tested the codebase through the xcode's simulation suite, which allowed us to craft a beautiful UI/UX and test functionality. Through our wide range of tools, we were able to collaborate and create beautiful software. - Challenges we ran into: - We are dedicated to excelling in both UI development and Database development because we believe that a delicate UI and a stable, fully functioning backend database is equally important. Along with our UI design and development, we have established Firebase connections and programmed working functions to get, post, and manipulate API structures and variables. However, the separation of UI development and Database development resulted in mistakes of file merging and sorting: the divergence in two GitHub lines caused the problem in merging UI and database. Next time, we will pay more attention to details, and management of working files. In addition to these challenges, the general time constraint prevented us from implementing other interactive features. - Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of Caravan and we believe that our app will be able to significantly change the way people meet each other, while also giving our users the opportunity of a lifetime. We are proud of the appealing UI and experience users get, and we are even more proud of the services we provide to users. Our team came together and put 110% into this project, and we grew both as computer scientists and global innovators. - What we learned: - HACKGT8 and the creation of Caravan taught us a lot. In addition to efficient teamwork, division of labor, design and development, the learning of technologies was definitely something we experienced. From picking up front-end Swift and SwiftUI app development skills to back-end Firebase database integration, we learned a lot in the process of creating this full-stack application. - What's next for Caravan: - Caravan has the potential to expand into something even greater and there are a couple of thing we would start with: - We are looking to develop our back-end and database connection. First, we plan to develop the application to offer more user-friendly, targeted services for travelers. We will not only design and provide platforms for organized group traveling of travelers with shared interests and passion. Also, we will implement recommendation algorithms and analytical algorithms to better recommend favorite places, routes, travel friends, and prices. - Enabling cross-platform functionality is a goal of ours. Partnering with other social media leaders like Instagram and Snapchat. - We also want to introduce mechanisms for “verified creators” to create communities where they can share their stories and adventures, progress their brand, and give our users a more personal experience. - We also hope to partner with all parts of the travel experience such as the hospitality industry and the food industry to help our users receive a complete and comfortable experience. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/discere-waterfall

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Minecraft, Where's my Water? What it does: - Builds and selects puzzles for logic game that users can access through their browser How we built it: - Using JavaScript, integrated website and game engine Challenges we ran into: - Implementing tree search algorithm, user interface Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Optimizing algorithm, Front-End product What we learned: - JavaScript, Front-End development, algorithm optimization What's next for Discere Waterfall: - Integrate current game to social system in which users can create and share problem First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/spotomosphere

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We were inspired by the power of nature on your mood. We felt that there were appropriate song choices for certain times of the day and certain types of days. This led us to create a web page that recommends songs depending on the current weather and time, which the user may not have thought of before. What it does: - This application takes in data about the current weather along with time, and recommends a spotify playlist to the user. It also projects a relevant image depending on the weather and time of day it is. How we built it: - We built our project as a single page application using ReactJS. We built this using a weather API to pull the current weather data from. Depending on the current weather, we would display a symbol representing a sunny, rainy, cloudy, or thunderstorming type of day. With the weather and time data, we checked how they matched and outputted a corresponding playlist and photo. We also used the Spotify API which allows us to embed certain playlists into our website. Challenges we ran into: - We had a hard time figuring out how to use the Spotify API to pull playlists and put it into our website. We also had challenges changing the background for each time of day. However, we were able to resolve our problems with team collaboration and further internet searches. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of the dedication we had to creating a functional webpage using ReactJS, especially when our team members had zero prior experience in the language. What we learned: - We learned about the powerful capabilities of javascript, css, and html. We also got exposure to using APIs including the weather and spotify APIs. What's next for Spotomosphere: - We will move to a mobile application which can be used for Android and Apple. Since we learned mobile app development and UI/UX design for this hackathon event, we will keep working on this project for the foreseeable future. - As for the prizes, we are looking to compete for all emerging prizes and all general prizes. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/safe-alert-9h67sp

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Suicide rates in the US have slowly been on the rise since statistics started being recorded for them. The global pandemic has also exacerbated this mental health issue. Currently, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the country. This rank jumps drastically for adolescents and young adults, being the second leading cause of death for ages 10-34. In university environments, it is especially prevalent. It seems we receive messages about students committing suicide multiple times every year. We wanted to tackle this issue and decided to design an autonomous system that would be positioned on the roof of tall buildings to notify authorities and mental health aid if somebody attempts to climb the rails and jump. Although jumping isn’t the leading method of suicide, “jumping from tall buildings or high bridges seems to be reserved for those who are determined to die”. Hopefully, our system will be able to detect jumpers and alert help, potentially saving lives. What it does: - Our system, positioned on the rooftops of tall buildings, has a distance sensor slightly past the railing, which should pick up any activity past the railing, like leaning or reaching. Once the sensor detects activity, the raspberryPi will have the connected camera take a picture. This picture is first run through Google’s Vision API, which detects whether or not there is a person in the image. This will verify that no birds or squirrels or plants trigger the response. If a person is detected, the image is run through OpenPose which uses a series of joint points to determine the position of the person’s body. If the person’s body appears to be in a climbing/unnatural or unrecognizable position, an automated message is played through the speaker, alerting the person that help is on it’s way,discouraging them from continuing their actions, and sending a message to authorities and mental health professionals about the situation. Any of these conditions not being met means nobody is in danger causing everything to run normally, How we built it: - Our main hardware component was a raspberryPi, which we connected to peripheral devices, an ultrasonic sensor and a USB camera. Python was the only language we actively coded in, while using technologies such as OpenPose, AWS SNS, Google Cloud Vision API, and OpenCV. We downloaded ubuntu onto the raspberryPi as our operating system and used it to coordinate between the peripheral devices and connect to AWS and the vision API. Challenges we ran into: - While building our system, we had some problems with our peripherals and with OpenPose. Working with the camera and speaker was tricky. OpenPose works best with high-quality, well-lit pictures and our old cameras were taking either low-quality or poorly-lit pictures which resulted in very inconsistent OpenPose results. We changed our camera to be a slightly higher quality one, which fixed some issues. Getting the raspberryPi to play the audio on the speaker instead of the connected monitor was also challenging. That required downloading an MP3 player. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We’re most proud of what we learned and successfully working with both a camera and open source machine learning algorithms. It was our first time working from source all the way to the end result, while working with unfamiliar hardware. I think we all gained new skills throughout the entire process and are proud of our accomplishments. What we learned: - This was all the team members’ first time working with RaspberryPi, so we had to learn how to set it up and work with it. In addition, we had to research and learn about human body recognition systems like the Google Vision API and the trained convolutional neural network, OpenPose to detect human presence and different parts of the body. We also learned how to use opencv to interact with our camera and manipulate images. Hardware-wise, dealing with the camera-raspberryPi and sensor-raspberryPi interactions was new for us. This was the first time we had worked with a raw camera output and large amounts of image data. Finally, a few of us learned how to code in Python for the first time. (P.S. We also learned vim) What's next for UMatter;: - The next step would be to create communication between the raspberry pi and the client on the front end. When notified, mental health professionals would be able watch a livestream of the camera. This feature would also allow for an on call counselor to help the person considering suicide in real-time. This would be accomplished by allowing the counselor to send data from their microphone to the speaker on the raspberry pi to communicate with the person. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/car-bon-0ebvx5

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - In recent years, we've seen the Earth's climate rapidly change. One of the leading causes is the passenger vehicle: cars and trucks account for almost 1/5th of the United States' carbon emissions. According to the United Nations, carbon emissions need to be reduced by 7.6% every single year until 2030 to prevent irreversible climate change. Our team has decided to create Car-Bon, an app that tracks a user's driving route and automatically calculates the carbon levels emitted from a trip. What it does: How we built it: - When the user starts tracking, Car-Bon will begin detecting the user's location and calculating the distance travelled. After the trip is completed, Car-Bon will automatically store trip specific data such as cumulative distance and waypoints in Google Firestore. With the data stored in Google Firestore, Car-Bon can retrieve a user's past carbon footprint, recent trips and plot the route on an embedded Google Map. Challenges we ran into: Accomplishments that we're proud of: What's next for Car-Bon: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/refroggers

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We have a passionate love for all things frog and for the Earth. Encouraging people, especially children who might not have prior education in this subject, to engage in sustainable behavior some froggy rewards led us to build ReFroggers! We drew inspiration from retro games, hence the font choice and art style. What it does: - ReFroggers rewards users' sustainable actions with Frogecoin. On any bin, scan the ReFroggers QR code to know what material it accepts. Bins can range from compost to recycle, and Frogecoin will be awarded by how sustainable and impactful that action is! Frogecoin is a full-trust, decentralized, ledger-based cryptocurrency that can be exchanged for ecofrog companions that will customize the app in fun ways. How we built it: - We first created mockups of the app with Figma. We chose React Native as our framework as we wanted a friendly mobile app that works with both iOS and Android. Our screens were created in TypeScript, and images were hand drawn by our designer in FireAlpaca. Challenges we ran into: - For some of us, it was our first time using React Native and doing frontend development, so getting up to speed with the program flow was difficult. Also state management took a lot of time to figure out. At first, it was simple with just a few variables to keep track of. As we kept adding features, it became more and more difficult to manage everything. It was definitely a learning curve, but we're proud of how we were able to expand our skill set and learn a new technology! Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Our code works and runs!! We think our app is super cute and we're glad we were able to make something that is both impactful and visually appealing. What we learned: - We learned a new technology and understood the app development process for React and mobile-dev in more depth. We also learned how important state management is for iterative development. - We discovered that peer programming is extremely helpful with speeding up development since you can have constant feedback and answers to questions quickly. Our developers had different coding backgrounds so each person can provide a new perspective. - Most importantly, frogs make everything better \ud83d\udc38\ud83d\udc38 What's next for ReFroggers: - We have a few things we'd love to further explore: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/caloriecounter-8g6bo4

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Our App: - Nutrition, especially for college students, is often neglected. At the very basic level, hitting one’s own caloric needs is vitally important to maintaining health. In opposition, the obesity rates, especially those of young adults in America continue to peak despite intervention from government associations and other non-profit organizations. Balancing these two issues with the fast-paced, stressful lifestyle that most college students lead, there is often little to no time to spare agonizing over inputting meals into an app to keep track of nutrition. Through this application, we created an AI based solution that both maximizes the ability to monitor nutrition, while minimizing the burden on the user to track their own nutrition. Utilizing the Google Cloud Vision API we were able to allow for a live camera to detect text on nutrition labels as an input, which was then translated to a number to track the nutritional value of food, and compared it to the total necessary amounts of nutrition. We initially planned to scan an image of a meal and return nutritional information upon recognizing the meal. However, we kept running into issues using the food recognition API we had found. Thus, we decided to scan the calories instead. In the 36 hours that we were given, we were not able to cover all the intricacies of the complete health model, but we do have plans to expand on our product in the future. Adding features that track vitamins, minerals, and even expanding upon our food recognition abilities so that our application can give meal recommendations based on dietary restrictions, and physical activity levels are all part of our next steps. Further into the future, we hope to be able to connect our recommendation software with local grocery stores in order to quickly place food orders based on the user’s dietary needs. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/hospital-management-l7jgq4

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: What it does: - This project is meant to serve as an equipment distribution management system for hospitals during COVID-19, specifically for personnel protective equipment (PPE). The dashboard allows a user to select a hospital and receive information about its ICU usage. How we built it: - The front-end is a simple react webapp that displays a form for inputting the hospital name.\nWe sourced data from a variety of places- the covid data is from Covid ActNow, but this API requires the fips code for a location to grab county-level data. To match hospitals to fips codes, we coded a Python script to cross-reference a list of hospitals mapped to counties with a list of counties mapped to fips codes, and then sent this data to the ActNow API. Challenges we ran into: - Our original goal was to integrate our project with NCR's catalog and order API in order to help manage PPE distribution, but we were unable to reach this part of development by the time deadline. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Most of our team was new to hackathons, so we enjoyed learning together how to use APIs and how to create webapps. What's next for Hospital Management: - We plan to continue working on this project to flush out the NCR integration, allowing for inventory management by suppliers. This will involve developing a basic catalog of products, implementing transaction data, building out a full backend system, and determining priority level using metrics other than ICU bed capacity. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/trendy-thrifts

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - As young adults trying to keep up with rampant celebrity culture, catwalk trends, and high-fashion designs on a budget, it can become difficult to not participate in fast fashion, even when knowing that it is a highly exploitative business model that is extremely detrimental to the environment. We wanted to design a solution that would allow consumers to buy and wear trendy clothes while abandoning fast-fashion companies. What it does: - Our app has 3 main functions. The first is a machine learning algorithm that predicts trend-cycles and how long certain items of clothing will be on trend. The second allows users to upload items from thrift stores that they believe are trendy. They provide a description of the clothing item along with a picture and the app will automatically predict its lifetime as a trend. The third allows users to search for these trendy items in thrift stores near them using clothing article filters. How we built it: - We built the prototype of the app on Figma. Challenges we ran into: - The most difficult part of our project was finding dataset to analyze that would allow us to predict trend cycles. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/foodies-bioj7a

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: What it does?: - Displays available recipes that matches the ingredients that you have at home How?: - Android Studio and Java Challenges: - Figuring out how to create an app with Android Studio without prior app development experience Proudest Achievement: - Learned how to create user storage and access it throughout our app Next Steps: - Extending our recipe database to display more diverse recipes of different kinds of dishes Emerging Hackers Team: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/techiniq

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Our team leader, Charlie, is an avid ice skater, and he originally came up with our idea because he wanted a way to compare his ice skating jumps to a professional ice skater’s in order to work on his form. What it does: - Techniq takes in two user inputs: an image of the athlete and an image of the professional athlete they want to compare their image to. With the two images, Techniq uses MediaPipe and OpenCV to track the position of the joints and limbs of the user and the professional athlete. Using these coordinates, a graph is created of both images that are then compared to find the differences between them. With every difference between the two poses, advice is given to the user on how they can improve and perfect their form. How we built it: - We built Techniq using Python and the MediaPipe and OpenCV open-source code. The Python code contains several functions that create coordinates for each body part, transform them into a graph, rotate the graph to be in the same orientation, and then compares the differences between the graphs and gives the user advice. The advice was planned to be printed out onto a web page made with HTML and styled with CSS, and subsequently had lots of work put into it, but we ultimately did not have time to implement it. Challenges we ran into: - We ran into several challenges while making Techniq. A very big challenge we faced was our rotation function. This function would rotate the user “skeleton” created from the inputted images so that they are oriented the same way. The matrix math behind the rotations of all the coordinates gave us trouble because we had to rotate in 3 dimensions. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We’re really proud of our standardization functions. Our work on transformation, scaling, and rotation required a heavy amount of advanced linear algebra as well reconstructing skeletons from the ground up, one coordinate at a time. We also figured out how to draw the two skeletons on top of the actual image so the difference between the two is much more clear to the user. What we learned: - We learned a lot about motion tracking and coordinate mapping during this project. All of us got more acquainted with the MediaPipe framework as well as the Flask Python module. Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed HackGT, and we're happy our first in-person hackathon experience was here! What's next for Techniq: - Our next goal is to be able to take in videos of different exercises and movements and be able to track them frame by frame in order to compare them to a video of a professional athlete doing the same movements. Due to the time restraints and our limited knowledge of motion tracking, implementing video motion tracking was something we could not execute. Additionally, our website would soon be put up and hopefully we can transition soon to Android and iOS, which would be the ideal environment for Techniq! First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/bluezone-g8myfv

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We are incredibly saddened by the fact that misinformation around the Covid-19 vaccines remains prevalent, which has caused many unfortunate and unnecessary deaths from unvaccinated patients, as detailed by the Washington Post. Thus for this hackathon, we want to build something that will help reduce Covid-19 misinformation on social media, thus leading to our idea of BlueZone What it does: - Ideally, BlueZone is an dashboard that collects Twitter tweets regarding Covid-19 vaccine and vaccine-related misinformation in the background, and visualizes the prevalence of and vulnerability to Covid-19 vaccine misinformation across the 50 US States. In particular, it will automatically calculate and visualize what particular misinformation topic is currently prevalent for each state and also how vulnerable each state is to misinformation based on their current vaccination rate and vaccine misinformation rate How we built it: - Due to time constraints, we performed all Tweet-gathering via the Twitter API and derivation of key metrics using Python (pandas, tweepy, numpy). To collect tweets on Covid-19 vaccine misinformation, we identify common terms that are extremely likely to be associated with vaccine misinformation (list can be found in Github Link), on top of generic Covid vaccine search terms. After calculating the score of the 4 key metrics (described in the Github Link and video presentation) for each state, we export this data to a csv file, which will then be used for visualization using the d3.js library Challenges we ran into: - One early challenge we found was that not all users self-report their location data (a key criteria for visualization). Furthermore, since user location is self-reported, the location format is highly variable and requires careful parsing to retrieve the state where user resides (or None if the user resides elsewhere). However, the biggest challenge we ran into was that most members of the team had very little practical experience regarding d3.js and other web technologies, which significantly slowed down development time. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are extremely proud of the fact that despite our lack of experience, we managed to finish extracting data and building 4 interactive visualizations for key metrics regarding COVID vaccine misinformation from the 155000 tweets gathered over a period of 24 hours, which we hope will be useful for public health officials to help strategize their outreach efforts against COVID misinformation. What's next for Bluezone: - We hope to turn Bluezone into a full-fledged web dashboard that can be expanded to other areas of medical misinformation. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/mindlastic

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - The mental-health crisis is a crisis in the US, with suicide rates increasing, and 46% of the Adult population reporting experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression. It is one of the few problems that technology has actively contributed to as opposed to remedying. We all have been strongly affected by the mental-health crisis and wish to use technology as a tool in the effort to combat it. What it does: - Mindlastic is an iOS app that is designed to track and elevate your mental health. The app is based around journaling, and uses OpenAI's GPT-3 AI to gain advanced insight on text input, detecting nuanced patters unnoticeable by humans, even ourselves. Each journal entry results in an estimated sentiment value, which is then used to track overall mood and well-being. This data can be combined with sleep and exercise data to provide suggestions to the user to alleviate mental health symptoms. How we built it: - Mindlastic was built with a Swift/SwiftUI frontend and a Python backend using Flask and MongoDB. The app uses artificial intelligence through OpenAI's GPT-3 for classification and summarization of the data. Challenges we ran into: Accomplishments that we're proud of: What we learned: What's next for Mindlastic: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/mercury-j5ieqa

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Digital receipts save great amounts of paper and water waste caused by typical recyclable paper receipts. In fact, completely skipping paper receipts would save 12 billion pounds of carbon dioxide. However, there is not a convenient manager for these digital receipts and they are often scattered throughout one's inbox. We wanted to create a do-it-all application that effectively stores and utilizes these receipts. What it does: - The program connects the NCR Order API to the point of sale system, generating a new order. From there, the project uses the SendGrid and Testmail email APIs to pass on the information, which is finally stored in a MongoDB. The frontend application, Nuxt, retrieves information from MongoDB and highlights the helpful data. Specifically, the program displays a map with markers located at each store where a purchase was made. Once clicked, each marker shows the store name and amount spent at that store. The program also has a pie chart that neatly shows the money distribution of all purchases. At the top of the dashboard page, there is a table consisting of merchant name, data, and total spent. The program also allows user to click on each purchase for further details. Each store also has its own loyalty programs page, where retail gamification is in full effect. How we built it: - We generated a point of sale (POS) simulator and hooked it up the order API. Simultaneously, the testmail and sendgrid APIs were made functional. We then established a connection with the MongoDB and created our connection information. The next step was to populate the Front End application using the retrieved data. We created and updates the necessary Node.js and Vue.js files. Specifically, we created a dashboard with pieChart, map, and loyalty components. Challenges we ran into: - The Mapbox API access token was not working, and it was difficult to fix rounding problems on chartJS as the values were stored as Strings in a list. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of our incorporation of the NCR Order API, and in general, we are proud of using a variety of tools. What we learned: - We learned how to operate the NCR Order API, the Mapbox API, the cruces of a Nuxt program, and the steps needed to connect a multi platform project. What's next for Mercury: - Use machine learning algorithms to offer suggestions based on user spending. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/toasty-91rtqo

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Many people continue to face challenges when it comes to remote learning.\nEducators and parents want greater insight into the students’ progress...\nYoung students need a service to boost productivity and motivation... What it does: - Toasty is a chrome extension/web app concept that is meant to be used in conjunction with other educational materials in order to boost productivity and morale. It gamifies the learning experience and encourages users to get stuff done in an entertaining and interactive way, through the motivation of a super cute & crispy piece of bread! Users complete tasks, earn crumbs, and then use crumbs to customize their toast with a variety of different toppings. Who it's meant for: - Ultimately anybody, but our target demographic is young children in elementary to middle school & their parents and educators (tutors, teachers, etc.) How it helps: - Educators and parents can play a more active role in their students’ academic progress, and this extension makes it easier to assign tasks and study material to students. For students, productivity is boosted in a more comfortable, entertaining, and friendly environment. Toasty seeks to gently encourage task completion. Every student can move at their own pace while maintaining a healthy relationship with their academic progress. How we built it: - UX/UI: Figma, FigJam, Procreate, Development: HTML/CSS, JavaScript, Git Challenges we ran into: - Time management (balancing socializing/events during the hackathon with project work ), challenges with development since creating a chrome extension was a foreign concept to all of us. Accomplishments: - Collaboration, Process of Designing and Prototyping to Program Execution, Use of a Variety of Tools & Technologies What's next for Toasty: - More complete functionality and hopefully eventually adding this extension to the Chrome web store! Also, more UX/UI designs & analysis! First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/sustain-go

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We were inspired by own everyday shopping habits and grocery routines where we often are unsure of which are the best brands to buy from. With an app that could provide suggestions and inform us of how to make better decisions, we could make changes in our own routines to contribute to sustainability efforts. What it does: - sustain.go provides users with a 'game' experience while they complete their grocery shopping. With a list of items, our app will provide users with some facts about sustainability and encourage them to choose to purchase brands that are sustainable. Each time they purchase from a more sustainable brand, they will be rewarded points which can be accumulated to earn discounts from their favorite stores. How we built it: - The project was built using the Java programming language and the XML markup language in conjunction with the Android software development kit libraries and the Android Studio IDE while also implementing key object-oriented programming principles.\nWe initially sketched out the idea for the application and created low fidelity mock ups in Figma. We added different features to the various screens of the app. Using the prototype tool in Figma, we created a user flow which allows a user to go from a login screen to the dashboard to view their points. They are also able to checkout the weekly challenges to earn more points, record their grocery trips and upload their receipts. \nWe took these mockups as inspiration as we started building the app in Android Studio. We initially started with created the structure of the project and organizing the classes into different modules. We used JAVA in order to create our frames in Android Studio. Each different screen has a class that handles the backend tasks, a .xml page that has the front-end of the screen and a controller that acts as the middleman. \nWe used Git to collaborate and keep track of our changes. Challenges we ran into: - We set out to build this idea in an android app, however our team has little experience with app development. We were able to set up an app in android studio, however could not fully implement functionality into our app. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We were able to get our idea across in Figma and create interfaces for our main pages of the app. Our team collaborated well in combining our skills and coming up with an idea we were all excited about. What we learned: - Our whole team learned a lot about creating an app. we learned from each other’s skillsets. From creating mock-ups in Figma to producing these designs on Android Studio, we learned how to go about the design thinking process and convert these ideas into a digital product. What's next for sustain.go: - we would love to be able to implement the app and provide factual data to users from APIs and databases. We could add more features such as more variety and reminders for weekly challenges, more opportunities to earn points, or a community leaderboard. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/write-right

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Through Covid, we realized we lost practice of our handwriting due to most of our school and work going online. With lifestyles returning back to normal, we want to give our audience the opportunity to assess their legibility and return to healthy habits of practice. What it does: - Our application will take in your image file, look through your writing, and return it as online text. If it misreads, it is an indicator that your handwriting needs some work. Through repeated file uploads, you can match your goal of legibility. How we built it: - We used the Pen to Print api to convert your image file to text. We hosted it on a webpage constructed with javascript, html, and CSS. We wrote our code in VSCode. Challenges we ran into: - We had to learn how to use APIs, manage our time effectively, set reasonable and realistic goals, and combat burnout. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of finishing our project and making it look good. What we learned: - We learned how to use APIs and how to create a website that allows you to interface different processes to reach one end goal. What's next for Write Right: - We want to expand our project to use grammarly APIs and return a more concrete level of legibility so we can cater to our audience in a more specific manner. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/environmental-data-analysis

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We all hail from across the United States, and among us, have seen many different parts of the world. As a result, doing a project centralized on helping society and the environment, through data visualizations, spoke to us, and this is our work on it. What it does: - The first part of this project is focused on looking at ESG (Environmental, Societal, and Governance) metrics for various countries around the globe, while the second part builds a machine learning model predicting revenue based on financial data in conjunction with company-specific ESG scores. How we built it: - We built the project completely in Kaggle, with assistance from various HackGT mentors and Stack Overflow. Challenges we ran into: - Initially, we planned on creating a robot which could play a game enhancing teamwork and communication among kids, using Java and C, however, due to various hardware and software problems, we had to rapidly pivot our idea. As a result, although we had many setbacks, I am very proud of our final product. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - I'm proud of all of us for building this project, especially as it was all of our first times at a hackathon, and so, everything was new to us. We were often pushed to our limits, but we persevered, learned a lot, and created a project that we are all very happy with, and one that we hope you all enjoy as well! What we learned: - We learned various data science and machine learning concepts, and how best to apply them to various contexts. We also learned how to know when things are going wrong, and how to keep pushing without running into a wall and preventing successful progress. Finally, we all grew closer as a team. What's next for Environmental Data Analysis: - We hope to enhance the machine learning model through more specific weights, and potentially changing the base model as well. Furthermore, if we could get more data, and add that to our model, that would greatly help with making sure that the information provided is accurate. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/search-project-nb92418cim0x

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: *NCR's 'Machine Learning in Retail' Challenge Winner!*: See it here - best on Desktop: Inspiration: - As brick-and-mortar stores close across the country, beaten by online retail giants like Amazon and Walmart, shoppers are forced to purchase online. While digital shopping can be more convenient and accessible to millions, consumers miss out on the interaction with products in their own physical environment and finding products can be tough when you do not know what to search for. This is why we have created Quasar, a web app available on desktop, iOS, and Android that uses augmented reality, machine learning, blockchain, and crypto to modernize shopping - making a new interplay between the physical world and digital shopping platforms. What it does: How we built it: - \nReactJS\n3D models & Augmented Reality (using Echo3D)\nAuthentication & Database (using Firebase)\nMachine Learning (using TensorFlow.js)\nCrypto Payments (using CryptoJS)\nWireframing & Prototyping (using Figma)\n Challenges we ran into: Accomplishments that we're proud of: - One thing we're most proud of is how our team was able to make the most out of each member's core strengths. Our specialties ranged from UI/UX to Full-Stack to Machine Learning, and somehow, we came together to create something beautiful with a ton of functionality. Alone, we would not have created such an awesome project with Quasar. But together, we inspired each other, supported each other and brought forth each other's best work. What we learned: - The most important thing we learned was how to work together as a team, even if we aren't physically near each other. At some points of the project, half of our team was virtual, and it was imperative that we clearly fleshed out a plan before programming to guarantee that we have the same vision for the project, rather than 4 separate ones. Our initial idea formulation meeting lasted over 2 hours, delegating tasks to each other and clarifying the goals/purpose of our hackathon project. What's next for Quasar: - We want to change how people see innovation. Though Quasar may not continue into the near future, the ideals of using innovative technologies to drastically change the status-quo of our daily lives will continue to live on through each of the members of team Quasar. We will continue to find ways to push the envelope and make people re-think the way they do things. One immediate goal is to continue improving the user experience and one way we can do that is by ensuring our design is responsive to multiple screen sizes (right now Quasar is not meant to be viewed on a mobile device) and to those with accessibility concerns. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/food-analyzer-mstklp

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - One day, we were eating at Willage, and, being on a diet, we realized that there was no way to identify the number of calories we were consuming! This inspired us to make the food analyzer software to find out the number of calories in our meals. What it does: - The software, which requires a computer and a webcam, enables the user to take a photo of the food item. Then, the software would use the Google Vision API to process the image and identify the name of the food and match it with nutrition facts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture FoodData Central. How we built it: - We used VSCode to write the Python code, and we used GitHub extensions for source control. We imported several modules, such as google-cloud-vision and opencv-python to access functions needed for image processing, database scanning, and UI design. To use Google Vision, we had to get an API Key from Google Cloud. We also downloaded and scanned the database of food and nutrition data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We built a user interface through PyQt5 that displayed the nutrition data of the food that was captured by the camera. Challenges we ran into: - We originally intended to automatically measure the weight of the food using Arduino and a force-sensing resistor. However, we were unable to obtain the hardware, and thus the weight has to be inputted by the user. We also struggled with setting up the Google API key, and we resolved this issue by following multiple YouTube tutorials. Another challenge we encountered was setting up the connection between the software and the webcam, and this was also resolved by following online tutorials. Ensuring the GitHub source control and Python module installations worked on every computer was a challenge since each computer often returned unique errors. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of making the database search effective, allowing us to accurately identify the food and the corresponding nutrition data from the database. We are also proud of making a easy-to-use, accessible GUI to enable the user to operate the software. We persisted in making sure that everyone's computers were connected to GitHub and had the correct Python modules, which often was a difficult task. What we learned: - We learned how to use Google Vision API, connect the camera to software, scan and parse through large databases, and work on technical projects with new teammates. What's next for Food Analyzer: - We want it to be able to digitally accept weight input from a scale connected via Bluetooth to our software. We look forward to improving the UI and adding customization for the users. We also hope to help the users track their daily intake and diet over time while offering them recommendations. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/restaurant-locator-0zrwhi

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We have experienced trouble finding dining options around campus that meet GT student-specific requirements. What it does: - This program gathers criteria from the users on what they want from the restaurant. It then asks users their location and returns the closest restaurant to them that meets their criteria. How we built it: - We gathered data on Restaurants in a two-mile radius and instantiated restaurant objects for all of them. We then made a comparison algorithm so we could find which restaurants meet the user's criteria. Then we use Python's Google Maps API to convert the user's location description into an actual location with latitude and longitude coordinates and also to find the restaurant's latitudes and longitudes. Then we find the closest restaurant to them that meets the criteria by doing some math with the user's and the restaurants' latitudes and longitudes. Finally, we output the closest one to the user. Challenges we ran into: - Our biggest issue was running a Python file inside a Java file. We ran into multiple IOException and FileException errors. This was also our first time working on a project of this size and on a team like this, so version control and work management were difficult. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - The code runs! We are proud of running the Python script to the Java code. We are also quite proud of our ability to debug our code and work as a unified team. What we learned: - We learned to overestimate our abilities and to make more reasonable assessments of the time it takes to do certain tasks. We also learned that we should not learn the technologies we are using during the hackathon. What's next for Restaurant Locator: - We want to sort the restaurants based on proximity and make a list. We would also like to make either a GUI frontend or a website. We also wanted to make a ranking system for the matches that are not 100% and put them under a "related restaurants" tab. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/suppl

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Drawing inspiration from games like CS:GO and League of Legends. The existing loot-box systems in those games served as a good feature to bring to retail to help customer engagement go up. What it does: - Suppl is a Google Chrome extension that awards users with boxes and keys for transactions at partnered stores. Redeeming a box gives users amazing rewards including gift cards, discounts, and even exclusive items. How we built it: - Suppl was created with Javascript, Java, HTML, and CSS. Challenges we ran into: - Some of the challenges that we ran into included connecting the chrome extension to our java backend, however, that is something we did not have the time to work on but is definitely part of the next steps for Suppl. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are very proud to be able to showcase a sleek design for the chrome extension with great functionality with the box and key system we created. What we learned: - We learned that creating chrome extensions through javascript can be difficult and requires careful attention to detail to maintain a neat design. What's next for Suppl: - The next steps for Suppl mainly include connecting the back-end software to the front-end javascript. Additionally, we would like to continue developing special features such as Suppl Saturday which incentivizes spending to get more boxes and keys. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/accessibility-me

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Coming into HackGT 8, we agreed as a team that we wanted to target either a social good or sustainability project. Especially with this opportunity to work alongside amazing people, in addition to the support offered by the HackGT team, this was an excellent time to work on a project that could potentially improve people’s lives. What it does: - For Individuals with Disabilities\nThe main map features multiple layers for a variety of viewing experiences, In addition to color-coded and uniquely shaped icons which represent important landmarks in their location such as transportation hubs, shopping centers, and public parks.\nHovering over these landmarks reveal the name of the location, address information, as well as an easy to understand 5-star rating system based on the accessibility of the location. Clicking on a landmark reveals additional accommodations provided by the location, which is similarly reflected in the right hand side of the webpage. This simple-to-read interface provides the key information for those with disabilities to choose to visit locations that are most accommodating to their conditions. \nAs discussed earlier, designing the user flow for those with disabilities consisted of adhering to accessibility guidelines and providing a simple and clean interface for our users to interact with, which was reflected in our final product. From the beginning and throughout the web application, this theme continues throughout our application, with intuitiveness and simplicity driving our design choices. - Vendors (local businesses, public services, etc…)\nFor vendors, we hope to provide a platform that not only features their advocacy for inclusivity but also promotes awareness of potential disability accommodations to better serve their local community. Businesses and vendors can provide information about their venue and specify their accommodations through a form on the web app. The form takes in name, address, and their available disability accommodations. Additionally, they can provide images of potentially helpful information about their venue. \nWhen designing user flow for vendors, our priorities were grounded in functionality and efficiency. As an app, we recognize that vendors must believe it worthwhile to interact with our service, and therefore, an easy and straightforward flow, often taking under a minute, was essential to opening the door to possible adaptation by companies. Technical Aspects: - Since our website mainly serves users with disabilities, we decided to focus on polishing the frontend interface and functionalities to make our website more accessible to users. - Front End\nAs stated above, we strived to keep our front end as sleek and clean as possible. While we employed some animation techniques, most of our front end consists of elegantly crafted panels and components. One of our major achievements on the front end of our application is the fully functional map, built to scale alongside our application, allowing for vendors from all over the globe to be represented. - Back End\nWe wanted to keep our backend simple, maintaining our storage through a Google Firestore database, and representing each vendor as an object that could be queried by the client. The most difficult problems we solved while developing the back end of our application were relaying information, managing Javascript promises, and representing vendors as JSON objects. Challenges we ran into: - Conceptually it was hard for us to pinpoint the exact needs of people with disabilities at first, but after extensive research on the difficulties that they face in their everyday life, we constructed a list of services that they might need and expanded our design based on that. Additionally, it was challenging to learn new concepts at the same time as applying it to our hackathon project. This resulted in a realization and questioning of the feasibility of some of our planned features, which unfortunately did not make it into the final submission. It was in our best interest to choose the most important features that needed to be implemented in the final solution. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Our final product was very nice to look at and minimal bugs remain in our final submission. The overall experience from beginning to end was seamless and accomplished our goals for the two user groups. \nSpecifically, the map was a resounding success. Multiple ways of interactions with map and vendor objects were made possible, thus making it very easy for an end-user to learn and navigate through the web app. What we learned: - One of the most important things we learned was the extensitivity and variety of disabilities, as well as an equally staggering but assuring variety of accommodations. \nFinally, we gained a lot of technical skills from working on this project. This included better experience with external APIs and understanding web development workflows. Furthermore, we gained a lot of experience with collaboration - a skill that is hard to learn in a classroom setting. What's next?: - If Accessibility.me continues to make progress, the next goals would be to implement the planned features that never fully made it into the final product. This would include furthering the web app’s accessibility features, such as implementing the larger text and inverting colors toggles. \nHowever, as a whole, we strongly believe that this project will help guide us to new future projects and further our drive to continue to contribute to projects focused on social good. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/seejs

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We wanted a unique way to understand code execution What it does: - Visualizes JS code execution and processes, by tracing and highlighting the run stack How we built it: - ReactJS and AcornJS Challenges we ran into: - Frontend heavy things like highlighting correct stack calls, and also parsing input from the user Accomplishments that we're proud of: - It works and we figured out a way to share links to code so that anyone can view what you have typed up! What we learned: - Language visualization is difficult and requires workarounds to display such content What's next for SeeJS: - Live Collaboration and Support for Python? First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/emotefun

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Having young relatives with autism, our team is deeply passionate about making a social impact on the autism community through technology and innovation. Being students at Tech, we believe our technical skills and determination can create waves of change when educating children with autism. What it does: - Our website helps children with autism to effectively identify emotions in other people through positive reinforcement in a game format. How we built it: - We built the website on Repl.it using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Challenges we ran into: - Our journey when creating this project was both rewarding and challenging. With a member of our team not familiar with coding, this process was a major learning curve for them. In addition, we had to work around people's job commitments and busy schedules to finish the project in a time crunch. Concerning the actual coding, it was difficult to ensure randomization and correct tallying of points when programming the game. At the end, we all pushed through these hurdles and gained an invaluable experience. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are very proud of building a website from scratch, all by ourselves! Not only did we learn how to program and project-manage, we created new connections and memories. Some accomplishments include finishing the project early, attending workshops to learn new skills, and designing a project that has potential for major social impact on a community that needs our help. What we learned: - We learned the importance of both communication, in terms of team management, and adaptability. Establishing and maintaining clear communication created a harmonious and efficient work environment, allowing us to finish before Sunday's sunrise. Because we firstly vocalized our concerns and outside commitments, we could properly manage our time and make good use of it. Later on, we realized how overambitious our initial idea was and made the crucial decision to simplify the project, ensuring we could fully complete and submit a minimal viable product on time. What's next for EMOTEFUN: - The possibilities are endless with EMOTEFUN! We plan to incorporate microphone input to truly assess the child's capabilities. This way, we can provide personalized feedback and help the child find intrinsic motivation to speak and interact with others. After HACKGT 8, our team is eager to improve and build upon the project to encourage children with autism to identify emotions and to speak out in their community. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/edunfts-online-open-market-platform-for-student-s-nfts

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - NFTs are exploding in popularity at the moment. However, it's mostly NFTs created by artists who create music and visual arts. I haven't seen NFTs and Cryptocurrencies being implemented into school environments yet, so why not start a new, unique platform to allow for students to create their own content and sell it as NFTs to the internet? This allows students to get exposed to the new part of the internet that is blockchain, crypto, and NFTs. What it does: - eduNFT is a website/online marketplace platform. Users who are students can use their .edu emails to sign up. They can upload, create, and list their own NFTs for other people on the internet to buy using cryptocurrency. These can include all kinds of content including software, art, school work, and more (discussions regarding ethics and regulations surrounding school policies may come up in the future). Overall, eduNFT allows for students to show off and auction/sell their creative work online and be introduced to what NFTs are and what cryptocurrency is. How we built it: - We first brainstormed what the site might look like using Figma. Then, we built the site using Webflow. We then embedded tools with the help of Coinbase to handle payments and linked elements together in code in the HTML files in order to make navigation and site functionality possible. Challenges we ran into: - While the site in its current state might be a good demo/proof-of-concept showcase of the idea, there is functionality that hasn't been implemented yet due to lack of knowledge as a first year and time constraints. We haven't learned anything yet about database-related work, API usage, or any back-end development which are concepts that would have been very useful in this project. Thus, limited technical knowledge was a challenge in this project. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud that website still works well enough in order to show an idea of what the final website might look like, and the user can still navigate the site well even though there is limited functionality. What we learned: - We gained experience on basic web development, brainstorming, UI design, using Git and GitHub.\nA huge accomplishment here would be that we attended our very first Hackathon! What's next for eduNFTs - Online, open-market platform for Student's NFTs: - If the site gains enough support, we will continue developing the site as we learn more about backend development, the blockchain, and more. I truly believe that this would be a good idea for students as their creative work may be rewarded with cryptocurrency in the future. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/connect4go

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Pokemon Go What it does: - Sets up Arcade game battle stations where people can find computer simulations of other players to see who is the best Connect4 player on campus How we built it: - ReactJS for the front end and Python/ Flask to manage a backend RESTApi Challenges we ran into: - How do we accurately simulate the decisions of a human player? Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Wrapping a Connect 4 API in Flask to get the optimal moves a player can make at a specific board position What we learned: - Building out a full stack iPhone App What's next for Connect4Go: - Build out more games for the platform so that people are not always just playing connect 4 First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/b-keeping

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Misinformation about climate change prevails. Witnessing how this misinformation stands as one of the largest barriers to environmental efforts inspired a deep desire to solve that problem. That's where blockchain comes in. Blockchain makes it possible to store an immutable ledger of data that doesn't need a third-party manager and cannot be tampered with. Storing climate data that's been peer-reviewed and verified as legitimate and scientific on the blockchain will keep a powerful record of data and prevent misinformation. What it does: - b.keeping focuses on relaying and storing accurate information, taking on the daunting challenge that is misinformation in the 21st century. Through the use of blockchain, b.keeping allows for surface-level peer-review followed by locking data. How we built it: - We built b.keeping using Java. Challenges we ran into: - We did not have any experience with front-end development, so building a front end was tough. There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to making a program interact with users. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of getting the blockchain to work, especially with having no prior experience with it. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/speechmote

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - The four of us were frequent users of Discord and Twitch and wondered how we could bring proper emoji handling to speech-to-text. What it does: - Speechmote allows you to click in a textfield and record audio. The audio is transcribed and then sent as a string to our API which then processes the text through the NLP model. The resulting emoji-fied text is then returned to the frontend and added to the user's clipboard, allowing them to simply paste it into the text area. How we built it: - The Chrome extension is built using Node.js and NPM packages bundled using browserify. The API is run through a Docker image that contains the Python backend with the text tokenizer and NLP emoji model. Challenges we ran into: - The JavaScript packages we were using to record audio actually had some bugs, which made it really hard to reach the exact functionality we wanted. Also, sending an audio file through an API wasn't really working, making it difficult to link our backend to the extension. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Chrome extensions and media streams are at the forefront of browser extensions. JavaScript is severely lacking in browser context support to where it made it nearly impossible for us to get audio streams working in any context except for one of our devices. The fact that we were able to get through this new frontier of technology is a great improvement, especially since our extension is a complicated process. What we learned: - A lot of unforeseen issues arose, but specifically that when cloud deployment is needed be prepared for that. Overall, we improved our Python and JS skills, and learnt a lot about Google Cloud. What's next for Speechmote: - The most important thing to do is fully link the API to the extension. That way we would be able to deploy the extension to the Web Store and have anyone use it. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/visor

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - The idea for this project came from the frustration and anxiety of waiting for an advisor to respond to emails about classes to sign up for. What it does: - This project uses data taken from OSCAR and ratemyprofessor.com to generate an optimized list of class registration numbers for classes that have the highest rating, but also don’t conflict time-wise. How we built it: - We made this project by first creating a sample set of data by researching various classes and professors on OSCAR and ratemyprofessor.com. Then we listed out the logic that the average student would use to select classes on paper. Finally we wrote code implementing that logic to make an optimized schedule. Challenges we ran into: - One of the main challenges we ran into was processing the data we researched. Because there are a lot of factors that go into choosing classes, it was very difficult to handle the large amount of data needed to generate an optimized schedule. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - The main accomplishment we are proud of is completing a project for our first hackathon. But it is also cool to make something that might come in handy the next time we register for classes. What we learned: - I think the most important thing we learned from this project is how much research goes into making any project. It felt like 70% of this project was researching solutions to problems and 30% was typing out lines of code. What's next for +visor: - If we have time to improve +visor before early November we might be able to use it to find the best classes to sign up for next semester. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/valu-5bacyh

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Over the past few years, economic downturn due to the pandemic has led small businesses everywhere to struggle to stay afloat. The issue these small businesses face is being able to not only obtain but also maintain their customers while only having a limited amount of experience. - Loyalty programs are a great way of encouraging customer growth and retention because they incentivize customer spending and give people a reason to come back to a business. What it does: - Valu is an information system that automates the process of creating loyalty programs for small businesses. It utilizes a point system in which companies can set the the tiers at which points could be redeemed for rewards. - Valu is comprised of both a business facing side and a customer facing side. From the customer side, people can have access to all their rewards from participating businesses in one convenient location. They would also be able to view their eligible rewards and add any points to their account from their recent purchases. From the business standpoint, companies would be able to set thresholds for redeeming points as well as track customer data. Challenges we ran into: - Some challenges we faced were actually implementing the APIs we were provided with. The documentation of the NCR APIs was challenging to get a grasp on and making calls to the APIs proved a rather challenging feat. However, given more time, the APIs that would have been utilized were the NCR Catalog and CDM APIs. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Logically working through everything and making sure that everything was sound from a design standpoint. In addition, having a user interface that people could interact with and the potential to upscale this idea and help out small businesses in the future is a big accomplishment. As we are all beginner hackers, our expectation going into this hackathon was to only have a rough idea. However, we ended up having more than just an idea, but a functional skeleton of our idea. What we learned: - We learned that calling APIs takes a lot more skill than one might think. In addition, we thought that it was important to efficiently delegate tasks so that we were all working towards the same end goal. Communication in hackathons is key to make sure everyone is on the same track and can work together to accomplish their goals. Additionally, not being afraid to ask for help, especially as a beginner hacker, was super important. We all had to be aware of our own strengths and weaknesses and understand the limitations and our capabilities given 36 hours. What's next for Valu: - In future iterations, we would want to add more functionality. For example, business analysis would help in evaluating the viability of our solution to the problem of struggling small businesses. In addition, we would like to expand the social aspect of Valu to beyond just the customers. We want Valu to be a place where small businesses can come together and support each other, rather than just customers supporting businesses. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/recipe-decoder

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We love food! And cooking--but sometimes it gets hard to read recipes, especially with all the fancy terminology. What it does: - Our website, Recipe Decoder, allows you to input any recipe you want and decodes it for you! The commonly confusing cooking terms are underlined, and you can hover over them to see what they mean. For your convenience, we’ve also included a keyword search function and a compiled dictionary of recipe terms. But most importantly, our website offers you the luxury of visually pleasing designs and transitions. How we built it: - HTML, CSS, Javascript Challenges we ran into: - It took a while to figure out how to underline and allow hovering/popups for only the keywords in the HTML paragraph, and also was difficult to implement the Google API. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of the default text in the text box/search bar disappearing when you click into it :) Also the scroll on the home page. What we learned: - We learned how to use HTML CSS and Javascript better! We also learned from each other and it was a nice first hackathon :) What's next for Recipe Decoder: - Implementing an API that contains more keywords so our website can be more useful! First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/retro-mall

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - When we first met each other at the start of the hackathon, we were excited to build something but were unsure of what. After reviewing the NCR challenges, we knew that we wanted to compete for one of the categories but were unsure of which one. As a result, our project is a combination of multiple objectives: we sought to gamify retail while also using blockchain technologies. What it does: - Our service consists of several components. It starts by web scraping useful product data from Amazon and storing it in a database for quick access. We then built a virtual world where users can interact with stores in a revolutionary way. They upload a portrait photo of their face, which is then converted into a customized avatar. They can then use this avatar to roam the map, interact with virtual stores, and play fun minigames for prizes.\n When a business joins our platform, a virtual store is generated to house its products. The shelves are automatically stocked based on web scraped data in our database. Product images are transformed using style transfer algorithms to better match the aesthetic of our world. After engaging with a virtual store, the user will be redirected to an Amazon webpage where they can finish their purchase.\n In addition to the above, we also built an Ethereum smart contract to allow for coupon NFTs. Users can play simple minigames throughout our virtual world for a chance of earning a coupon. Upon earning a coupon, our platform will award them a non-fungible token with the coupon’s information through the smart contract. They will then be able to transfer and trade these coupon tokens with other users. We believe that these ideas have the potential for transforming the future of retail. How we built it: - Our platform is built using a variety of technologies. Our primary programming language was Python for its ease of use and versatility. We built our web crawler with the help of Scrapper’s API and stored the data in a Sqlite3 database. For our style transfer algorithm, we played around with the parameters of the popular Pyxellate algorithm until we achieved pleasant results on a diverse set of images.\n The virtual world is built using Pygame, a popular 2D game engine for python. The background image was edited using the Tiled software. We designed a custom TileMap system just for Pygame to allow the player to better navigate the world. We also designed custom GUIs in Pygame for our stores.\n Our Ethereum smart contract was written in Solidity and deployed to the Ropsten Test Network using Remix. This allowed us to test our contract without having to spend real ether. Instead, we just had to get free ether from the Ropsten faucet. Our python scripts are able to access our smart contract using Web3 library for Python. Challenges we ran into: - The first challenge we ran into was being unable to web scrape Amazon due to recent policy changes. We were able to resolve this issue by using Scrapper’s API. The next issue we encountered was struggling to master recently released Python libraries for making games. As a result, we chose Pygame, a well-documented library with a very active community. Despite being an older library, it was still able to give us good results.\n We also encountered issues with the style transfer algorithm. Some of its outputs were not as pleasant as we had hoped they would be. It took a lot of fine-tuning to get acceptable results. The largest challenge was integrating all of our creations together to build a final product. In the end, we are happy with the outcome. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proudest of the synergy between all the components of our service. Connecting our web scraping code, our database, and our virtual world was a difficult and time-consuming process. Launching our app and seeing these different systems working well with each other brings us pleasure.\n We are especially proud of our coupon NFT system, as we designed it at a relatively late stage in our development process. When errors appeared, we were afraid that we might have to discard it. Seeing it become fully integrated with all our other components was extremely satisfying. What we learned: - We all gained a new level of familiarity with the technologies we worked with over these past 36 hours. Despite using neither Solidity nor Pygame for the past 3 years, I now feel as if I am an expert on these topics. As a whole, we gained several useful software engineering and collaboration skills that will be useful in our educational and professional careers. What's next for Retro Mall: - The next big step for Retro Mall is refining the graphics and GUIs. We intend to transform the world from a 2d world to a 3d world. The style transfer algorithms need further fine-tuning and our code needs significant cleaning. We also need to examine our smart contract thoroughly for any vulnerabilities that might compromise the safety of our users’ tokens.\n We might also be able to extrapolate some useful information from examining users’ behavioral patterns using machine learning algorithms. In order for our service to become truly compatible with the metaverse of the future, we need to enable massively multiplayer interactions. These two improvements would push our platform’s capabilities to the next level. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/grizzle-guide

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Overview: - We love the great outdoors but we also like to be prepared for what’s coming our way. That's why we created an App that gives nearby hiking locations with info on the local weather such as sky condition, temperature, and humidity. You can start by entering your home address or an address near where you’d like to hike! The addresses are converted to precise latitude and longitude coordinates through google’s geocoding API. Those coordinates are sent to Google’s places API to search for popular hiking, camping, or other outdoor recreational locations. Each of these potential locations has its coordinates sent to a weather API to get the current climate conditions. The recreation sites are then arranged in order of proximity to the initial address and displayed in a list with all of its relevant data. Merging these data sources gives the user the knowledge and power to safely prepare for a trip into the great wilderness so they can live healthier, more sustainable lives. - Impact & Sustainability - With Grizzle Guide, the team hopes that users will become more excited about the possibilities of the outdoors, leading to a more active and sustainable lifestyle. Additionally, by becoming more experienced in the outdoors, users may become more aware of how the environment is being threatened today. By giving the users easily accessible parks and hiking locations, it is more likely the users will visit the location, increasing the chance for a true interest in the environment. - Challenges - This was the first time the group worked with Android Studio to create apps, or even worked on developing apps in general. The learning process for app development and Android Studio was eased due to the resources available at HackGT 8, such as the Android App Development workshop in the Emerging track. The other main issue the group faced revolved around the use of APIs to power the processes the app executed, such as GPS retrieval and finding nearby destinations. However, once this issue was resolved, it became easier to execute the operations that relied on the APIs. - What We Learned - The team learned many useful tools for developing apps in the future. As mentioned above, one of the major accomplishments involved the use of the Google APIs, which allows the team a more solid understanding of the Google Cloud Platform in order to build more complex and powerful applications. Another tool, also mentioned previously, was Android Studio, which would streamline app development in any future endeavors. Finally, the team was able to cultivate skills learned from class through this experience, and the emerging workshops added additional skills to aid future aspirations. - Future Goals - - Map interface that allows for users to visually comprehend data\n- More accurate ranking system based on weather conditions in different areas\n- User preferences to rank location by user interests First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/bunnymatrix

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: What Inspired Us: - Bunny Matrix was created while discussing our interests, experiences, and goals. Initially, we felt lost as we were having a hard time coming up with an idea. All four of us agreed that we want to gain experience, learn new implementations, make connections, and have fun hacking. We communicated our ideas to each other and changed our plans to reflect new additions. We believed our project should not only be possible to create with the time restriction but also be practical and impactful. Some ideas we had included making a leaderboard of professors on Course Critique, using the Google Maps API to plot a heat map of forest fires in the country, and creating a calendar for GT Engage events. Ultimately, we proceeded with a project that allows businesses to take advantage of modern machine learning algorithms to predict future business opportunities. After hours of discussion, we decided to create a tool that not only visualizes a generic time-dependent business key performance indicator (KPI), e.g., weekly sales, but also predicts future KPI movement utilizing machine learning on past performance. What We Learned and How We Built This: - Throughout this hackathon, we learned a lot from new libraries to new languages. We found a number of libraries that simplified the implementation of several complex functions. One of the first libraries we attempted to implement was the D3.js as one of the team members had some experience using it. This library was used to parse the hundreds of rows of data in the CSV file, to produce the dataset in a JS array, and to construct a preliminary scatterplot visualization of the dataset. However, D3 was relatively complicated for beginners and required a server to operate in. We decided to utilize Chart.js as it provides more intuitive functions and has a bigger user base to get support. Overall, the most important library we used is Regression-js. This library enabled us to conduct numerous regression analyses and plot the regression line under multiple modes including linear, exponential, and polynomial with an order of an integer. Regression-js only provided us with a mathematical model that takes in an input X (time in our dataset) and gives an output Y (Walmart weekly sales). - The real question was how we could take the data regression-js provides and implement it in Chart.js. The library provided us with a regression equation but not an actual line graph which we need. We came up with a quick solution to instead take an arbitrarily large number of equidistant X points and calculate the respective Y values for each through the regression equation. The points are plotted and connected with straight lines. As the number of points approaches infinity, the regression line becomes more representative to the extent of the accuracy of the mathematical equation. The resulting regression equation was also used to predict current and future values of the KPI metric, the first step in machine learning models. In addition, we added complementary functions that improved the functionality of the regression analysis, like the ability to get a specific predicted KPI metric value with a given date and the ability to zoom into the graph. The latter function was implemented by a simple trimming of the visualized dataset (though the regression line suffered no effect, to our advantage). Challenges We Faced: - One of the challenges we faced while implementing the JavaScript library was making future KPI predictions. The drawn line of best fit was almost completely horizontal. This issue arose because we could only represent a date in numerical values using the getTime() method. However, the method used returned the time in milliseconds which was too large compared to the difference between the data points. We solved this problem by creating a manipulateTime() and revManTime() functions which kept the ratio between the time values but made them easier to deal with. After resolving the issue, we also improved the regression model so that it predicts the future KPI metric more accurately by customizing the regression analysis used to seven-degree polynomial regression. Another challenge we faced was coming up with an idea. At first, we were not sure what track to choose as some members were unfamiliar with certain fields. As beginners, it was hard for us to come up with an idea that combines web development with data science. After researching for topics, connecting with mentors, and attending several of the data science workshops, we came up with the business visualization and prediction tool that we were all proud of and passionate to contribute to. And we are confident in our program. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/receipts-price-checker

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We are very curious whether there is any relationship between the consumption price at different stores and time points. As students, we always hope that there is a service that can help us find the necessities of life that we often buy and are relatively cheap. This will help us make better use of our limited living expenses. What it does: - It can keep track of purchasing history for price comparison by scanning and recognizing receipts to find the most affordable price of a certain product and display it on the web. How we built it: - We built it with Flask, Jinja2 template, PostgresDB, Azure Form Recognizer, Docker, and AWS. Challenges we ran into: - We ran into several environmental issues when deploying on the AWS. Also, to best synchronize the developing environment between Mac OS and windows, we spent lots of time building up a docker with a database. Moreover, how backend and frontend cooperate to process, store and display the data on the cloud challenged us differently. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of building up the whole tool from scratch in one day. We need to develop the backend and frontend, integrate with third-party API, set up the database and container, and finally deploy the service to the cloud. The completeness of the tool is more than we thought before. What we learned: - This is the first time we have set up services on Azure and AWS, so our technical skills in deploying the system have grown a lot. In addition, when we repeatedly use our system and improve it, we continue to discover how to design services more from users' perspectives and make it more user-friendly. What's next for Receipts Price Tracker: - We hope that our service can be used more widely and help more people. Therefore, the next step is to ensure the scalability of our services on the cloud. We need to ensure that our server can deal with nondeterministic client access efficiently. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/yarn-5p0h61

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We wanted to create a project that extended just beyond our campus community and could help other students as well since we felt that many students, especially minorities, would struggle to find their place in their campuses. What it does: - It provides a place for students to discuss and rant about their experiences on their campus. How we built it: - The frontend of the website is handled through HTML and CSS, while the backend is handled primarily through Node.js and Express.js while data is stored in a MongoDB database. Challenges we ran into: - Trying to synchronize everyone's schedule was particularly difficult since we had two members who could not be present in-person for the event, so we had to ensure we could all participate in a hybrid format. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Since this was our first HackGT for all of the group members, we're happy to have been able properly create reasonable ideas and to finish the project within allotted time schedule. What we learned: - The difficulties of maintaining good, consistent communication, especially with a virtual and in-person team, as well as gaining experience into what a hackathon is and how the workflow of one typically goes. What's next for Yarn: - Would probably be further enhanced through improving the UI and adding more features such as a reply feature, etc. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/fxma

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We’ve all struggled with time management in our lives. Because of the fast-paced and busy nature of our days, many students barely have the time to sit down and formulate an outline or plan for their week. This is how FXMA emerged in our heads. We wanted to develop a program that would help students plan out their busy schedules and reduce the stress they face in their lives. What it does: - FXMA is a full-stack project that interacts with the Google Calendar API to take in user input and automatically populate the student’s calendar with an optimized study plan. The program allows users to input an assignment name, deadline, estimated amount of time needed to complete the assignment, and whether they want to work on it in blocks. After this, FXMA will allocate time over the next week for the student to work on the assignment. How we built it: - FXMA’s front end was created with HTML and JavaScript, and its back end was developed through Python with Flask. Flask was used to connect the front end with the back end to ensure user input was handled efficiently. FXMA’s back end was integrated with Google Calendar’s API to allow easy viewability for the schedule. Challenges we ran into: - One of the largest challenges we ran into was connecting our back-end and front-end. All of our members had pretty good back-end and functional programming experience; when it came to making a sleek looking front-end, we weren't sure how to accomplish the challenge. We spent more time than we would've preferred figuring out how to pass arguments in from our front-end to back-end using Flask and HTTP requests. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Our team is proud of our full-stack application, and how we managed to accomplish our goals in less than 36 hours. All of our team members had the opportunity to work with a technology or language that they had no previous experience with, and we were all able to deliver a significant contribution to the project. What's next for FXMA: - Currently, FXMA is still ran locally on one's computer. We are moving FXMA to Heroku which will allow users to not have to worry about all the dependencies our back-end requires and the headache of running from command line. Moving FXMA to Heroku will allow users to use our tool non-locally while still maintaining access to their personal Google Calendar. - There's still room for improvement when it comes a proper time allocation algorithm when inputting an event. Static events are going to be called at the beginning of FXMA, so we can be sure not to overwrite a user's current calendar events. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/ingredi-finder

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration:: - Over the years, fast food and eating out have become the norm. As the typical adult becomes busier and the general idea of the nuclear family shifts, individuals are presented with more obstacles with putting a healthy meal on the table. So, our team looked for a way to utilize the boom of sales from grocery delivery and pickup to encourage more home cooking without overwhelming consumers. Product Information:: - We built a functional web application to showcase software that could possibly be used for consumers using an online grocery store. The idea is when a user inputs their grocery list, or from an online grocery store standpoint- when the user adds an item to their online cart, the application provides a list of recipes the user can make using the items in their cart. The list of recipes primarily consists of things they already plan on purchasing and some recipes that only require a few more additional ingredients. This is determined by the machine learning algorithm of Cosine Similarity. The user also has the option to filter out the recommended recipes based on allergies and other dietary restrictions. Tools utilized to build the product:: - We prominently used Jupyter Notebook and Python to write the code, along with Flask to execute the code into a web application. We also used HTML/CSS for the web application functionality. Challenges we ran into:: - Machine learning was not the strongest suit for all team members, so we had trouble getting started with writing the code and implementing a proper machine learning algorithm. We explored a few machine learning algorithms such as clustering but decidedly ended up going with the cosine similarity. We initially used a massive dataset (~200,000 recipes), and the average runtime to deploy our application is ~15 minutes. We decided to cut down our dataset to 10,000 recipes for a feasible runtime (less than a minute). Additionally, integrating the front-end and back-end was also challenging as we ran into several debugging issues with Flask. Accomplishments we’re proud of:: - We are proud of being able to put out a code that functions well despite not everyone in the team having the same background and experience with data science and machine learning. Throughout the coding process, we each contributed and gained knowledge from others’ contributions that will help us with other projects we build in the future. For the future:: - Our team plans to work on the front end heavily. Currently, the code executes, but the web application is not ideal for consumers to use. We plan to use a larger dataset, deploy the code to the cloud, and use the engine to run it. We also plan to add healthier and eco-friendly recipes that support sustainability and add more filters to make the application suitable for more individuals. Additional future direction involves point systems for consumers that try the recipe recommendations. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/manim-manager

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - 3 Blue 1 Brown is a content creator that makes math videos with stunning and intuitive visuals and animations, and to accomplish this goal he wrote and published a library known as manim (math animation). The animations that this library renders out, if done correctly, are extremely useful and helpful for understanding if used effectively. - Manim is an open source library, but the documentation for it is fairly poor, and it's not particularly intuitive to use. If anyone wants to create a manim scene, they would need to learn how to use Python, then try to comprehend the documentation for manim, which is a large burden for anyone who doesn't already have some of the required skills. So to address this issue we decided that we would try to create a simple and easy to use GUI that could generate manim scripts. What it does: - Our program is mostly a frontend program with a small backend to generate the python code to give to manim to render scenes. The user adds the manim components that they want in a scene, and adds animations to those components. Then the user can update some parameters associated with each animation and component and then generate a script that the user can use to render a manim scene. How we built it: - Our program is built using Javascript/HTML/CSS. The frontend uses React to run on the client machine without needing to contact a server, and the backend is written entirely using Javascript. - The frontend has 5 panels that each contain different things, such as component properties, a scene timeline, a preview window etc. This allows the user to create and edit their manim scene to how they want it to look. - The backend in this program isn't technically a backend. All it contains is a few object definitions and generators to create python code. However, for simplicity sake I will be referring to it as a backend. The backend holds all the definitions for the supported manim objects and animations, as well as the containers for those objects. The backend also has a generate function which generates the python code needed to render out the manim scene. Challenges we ran into: - How to organize data in the project - This was a large issue that we ran into while working on our project, and our solution to this problem frequently changed while we were working. One solution we came up with was to only allow 1 component on screen at any given time. This solution would make it easy to generate the code, but it also reduced the utility of our project to almost nothing. Another solution was to allow 1 component on screen, but allow the user to layer multiple sequences of components on top of each other. This solution would have been extremely powerful and allowed the user to do more with our program, but currently there isn't a simple way to generate manim code to do this. - We ended up settling on a solution where the user can add as many components as they want, and they can associate certain animations with specific components. While this does make the program less user friendly, it makes it so that the program can generate the python script more simply and more reliably. - How to create a fast preview of the scene - Trying to get a preview of the scene working is still something that we're planning on working on even after HackGT. Having a good preview is useful for our program, as it would allow users to more quickly spot and correct errors and make it easy to visualize what's happening in a given scene. However, without simply rendering a given frame using manim, it's quite difficult to create an accurate preview. While we do have an implementation of this in our project right now, a few major issues that we're having are handling all the properties that manim components have, as well as converting between JS coordinates and Manim coordinates. - How to get all of the code working well together - The biggest problem that we have right now is that the code is somewhat buggy and unstable, even though its only frontend code and a simple generator in the back. There's a lot of inconsistency with how similar GUI components are implemented which causes some bugginess, as well as some general unstable code as our team is still somewhat inexperienced. Another thing that adds to this issue is that the generator code and the frontend code were developed almost entirely independantly, and there was less communication between team members than we would have liked. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - One thing that we're very proud of is that many sections of our code work quite well. This includes adding components and animations to our manim scene, as well as the backend python code generation. - Another thing that we're proud of is the GUI for the program. While it isn't super pretty or polished, it works reasonably well in many areas, and (in my opinion) looks somewhat pleasing to the eye. What we learned: - One thing that we learned is how to work with React and Javascript. At least for me (the one writing this), the languages that I've worked with historically are Java and .NET Languages. Working with Javascript, HTML, and CSS was completely new with me, and especially given the rising popularity of Web technologies this was a valueable skill to have started developing. - Another thing we learned is how to work on large projects with multiple members. Some of these skills include using git for collaboration, creating a high level diagram for how the project will be organized, as well as interfacing with code that isn't your own. While our project doesn't do this super well, it was a very useful learning experience, especially for future projects. - We also learned what its like to work on zero sleep \ud83d\udc80 What's next for Manim Manager: - As of now, our plan is to rebuild Manim Manager so we can have a more stable codebase. Some of the code from this version of it may be refactored and then reused in this new version, but for the most part we'll be using this as a learning experience so we know what to do for the next versions of Manim Manager. - We're also planning on adding more components and animations to Manim manager (namely adding grids) so that users can create even more stunning visualizations in Manim. - Happy Hacking! - -Team CS is just Applied Math First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/break-the-barrier

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We were inspired by the classic kid's show The Electric Company, which made learning the English language engaging and enjoyable. We combined the notion of learning with our interest in Web Development and appreciation for Korean culture to create a project that is educational, interactive, and fun! What it does: - Break the Barrier is a site that teaches foreign languages (in this case, Korean) to learners with disabilities by using the Orton-Gillingham approach, which separates words into syllables. The site displays a Korean vowel, displays an English word with a similar-sounding syllable, then displays the Korean character for the vowel as well as an example word. Each word or syllable is hidden behind a button that the user must click to reveal each step, increasing the learner's engagement. To ensure multisensory learning, the word or syllable is read aloud upon reveal. How we built it: - We used JavaScript and React to create the backend and frontend of the website, npm package manager to locally host the site, and tried to implement the Tailwind framework and howler.js audio library. Challenges we ran into: - All four team members have very limited coding experience (two of us are Engineering students) and we had to teach ourselves JavaScript and React during the hackathon. We have no experience with Web Development but we were interested in creating a site. We were unable to get the hower.js audio to fully work and ending up omitting that portion of the demo. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We learned basic JavaScript and CSS and were able to create working buttons using a flexbox, as well as a nice-looking website with simple functionality. The words pop up nicely and we taught ourselves how to use Tailwind to create simple animations for some buttons. What we learned: - We learned everything we know so far about JavaScript, React, and WebDev in one hackathon. We also have a better understanding of git and how to used git and GitHub to create a collaborative workflow. What's next for Break the Barrier: - Given more time and had we had more experience with the language, frameworks, and libraries, we would have implemented sound cues that would read each word or syllable. We'd like to host Break the Barrier as a fully-functional website with its own domain. We also would have created two drop-down menus to change the languages, as well as increased our database of comparable words and syllables or maybe pass in text-to-speech or Google Translate api. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/listr-u02p8m

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Movies and tv shows get the spotlight in mainstream media and attention, but we wanted to give the same spotlight for music and its global audience by providing it the same ranking features visual media have, too. What it does: - Listr is a website designed around the idea of growing accessibility to your favorite albums and providing a way to share your thoughts about them through a rating system, similar to other sites for movies or tv shows. How we built it: - This application essentially allows a user to rate albums they listen to, with all items being pulled from the Spotify API. Here, we have a login prompt at the header of our site that requires each user to sign in to their Spotify account in order to get access to all the albums available in Spotify’s database. After making that initial request to their API, the website then generates the top 5 most popular albums (by number of plays) for the entered query, dynamically changing its results as the entry is being edited thanks to React.js serving as our development framework. Alongside this built-in search functionality, it also lets the user add any of those listed albums to their own rating list section, where anyone can use the sliding bar positioned beside each album to numerically rank each one in their custom list. These attributes and features were implemented via HTML, CSS, and Javascript (as well as for the rest of the website) to not only rank the albums individually but also store that data, too, in the backend. Challenges we ran into: - We didn't have much web dev knowledge, so a lot of problems arose when making our React application compile and load successfully with all the attributes and components we wanted to include. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We're proud of the fact that we got to learn a new framework and language from scratch to build a functioning website that's interesting and unique. What we learned: - How to use React.js, HTML, CSS, Javascript What's next for Listr: - Storing rating data into a database with an authenticated and protected login system; connecting users of the website with each other based on similar interests and ratings of similar music First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/shibaceipts

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration:: - As poor college students who carpool and split groceries, we have to manually read receipts, input the items purchased into a table, and calculate how much each of us has to pay. It is very time-consuming and as expected, quite boring. To end this long and tedious process, we decided to stay up all night (twice!) and make a receipt scanner using OCR; it reads, extracts, and saves the grocery items data. Since it's no fun to simply scan receipts, we decided to gamify it! We have hand-drawn generative art in the form of cute Shiba Inus of different rarities that you can collect, thus giving this project the name Shibaceipts. What it does:: - After shopping at your favorite store, you can take a picture of your receipt or upload an old receipt to the Shibaceipt app. The OCR automatically detects, separates, and saves item names, item costs, and the total. This total is then used to generate your very own shibaceipts NFT, out of 6000+ possibilities. This NFT is saved to your Shibaceipt account and can be seen by others and sold. Through the marketplace, you are able to purchase other users' for-sale Shibas. On your account, you should be able to view your past receipts, the items purchased and their costs, and the Shibaceipts you own. The total amount of the receipt influences the rarity of the minted Shiba, with higher spending resulting in rarer traits. How we built it:: - We used a React-Native, Javascript frontend with a Python flask backend. The OCR parsing logic workflow is through Amazon (AWS) Textract. Shibas are generated via the receipt amount and with random weighted traits, and the accessories are combined with the shibas with the help of Pillow. Challenges we ran into:: - We wanted to categorize the data based on the item purchased. For instance, "red gala apple" would be a fruit, "Dove moisturizer" would be a personal hygiene product, and so forth. We intended to generate shibaceipts based on the amount of products of each type created but this is a huge problem being researched for the past few years and is probably not possible to be solved in 36 hours. Accomplishments that we're proud of:: - 6000+ Shibaceipts to collect\nAll of the art is hand-drawn\nUser-friendly, cross-platform application \nQuick and precise OCR What's next for Shibaceipts:: - We plan to introduce custom accessories for receipts that belong to particular stores, allowing for brand integration and sponsorship opportunities. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/grocery-guru

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - As college students, we’ve often found ourselves waiting on our friends to order groceries to avoid paying the high delivery charges which can at times be nearly as expensive as the groceries themselves! What it does: - Grocery guru is a group ordering website where people can plan collective orders. The website tracks how much money remains before the delivery becomes free. It's also sustainable because it helps cut down unnecessary trips to the grocery store. How we built it: - Grocery Guru runs on HTML/CSS front-end and PHP for the server-side. We hosted the server using XAMPP, which integrates a MariaDB database. Challenges we ran into: - We effectively learned PHP from scratch and had forgotten much of the implementation for HTML and CSS. Furthermore, it was very difficult to work with the user entities on our website such that the server remembers the user's credentials. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud that our website is able to host user accounts and allows them to join and form new groups. What we learned: - As noted above, we had to learn PHP and how to query databases. Furthermore, we saw just how difficult full-stack development is. What's next for Grocery Guru: - For future implementation, we aim for the app to notify people in the cleared order via email to instruct them how to split costs. Furthermore, we are working towards implementing group management into Grocery Guru. Thank you for your time, and happy group shopping! First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/cryptlearn

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Understanding blockchain, cryptocurrency and decentralized finance technology can be difficult and overwhelming if you have no technical background. But in order to participate in the emerging cryptoeconomy, you need to understand what you’re getting into. What are the risks, what are the rewards? How does blockchain work? Why does DeFi matter? What opportunities are there in crypto investing for the future? With our web application CryptLearn, we seek to build a better-decentralized world by bringing blockchain and cryptocurrency education to everyone. What it does: - CryptLearn is an educational platform hoping to reach out to end users of all backgrounds and levels that have not yet embarked on their trading journey! :D How we built it: - The front end development of the website was primarily done with Figma, HTML, CSS. The back end development was done using python; libraries including numpy, pandas, matplotlib; frameworks including streamlit (an open-source app framework for Machine Learning and Data Science teams); APIs including the Yahoo Finance and Binance APIs Challenges we ran into: - For the most part, working with virtual environments was mentally taxing, as it required us to try out multiple IDEs to see which one suited us. Additionally, importing APIs and organizing data in a refined manner that's intuitive to the user was not an easy task. We also built a chart that plots bitcoin prices in real time, but we struggled with the integration of that data with the front end. Throughout the two days, we tried to add more functionality to our website including a crypto trading, a stock market simulator, and an intuitive chatbot, which we developed the code for but did not have enough time to implement. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Building the website from scratch and implementing 3 web applications to allow the end user to better understand and analyze the crypto market was no easy feat. Furthermore, providing users with unbiased data and information in regards to the market to provide them an opportunity to learn about cryptocurrencies in theory and deeply analyze/study the markets in real time. This is in order to allow the user to make neutral decisions on stock and crypto trading that wouldn't compromise their financial security. For all those reasons combined, we are very proud of our product. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/wake-4dj7sv

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Each year, roughly 100,000 car accidents can be attributed to driving while tired. As sleep deprived students, we know how severely a lack of sleep can affect focus and concentration. We noticed that accidents due to drowsy driving is a very commonplace yet preventable problem. Our inspiration for Wake was the realization that commercial drivers, like truck drivers, can be especially succeptible to drowsy driving, as they are forced to drive up to 11 hours every day. Wake seeks to ensure that truck drivers do not drive past their limit and take breaks when needed. What it does: - We developed a system to alert commercial drivers when their brain emits alpha wave frequencies, which indicates deep relaxation and closed eyes, and upload the location of the drivers as well as their brain activity to a central website. In doing this, drivers are alerted to stay awake and find nearby resting spots while businesses can keep track of the drivers and their activity. How we built it: - Using an EEG , we recorded brain wave activity and coded a Raspberry Pi 3 to set off a buzzer and LED display when the brainwave frequencies were below 15 hertz (which is the frequency of an alpha wave) and remained at that frequency for 4 or more seconds (which is how long one can look away before increasing the liklihood of a crash). Our web app was built primarily in JavaScript and Python using React and Flask, as well as we used the Mapbox map-building API. Challenges we ran into: - One of the challenges we faced was getting the algorithm to indicate sleep. Due to the noise from the EEG data, the algorithm would consistently show "awake" despite having closed their eyes for more then 4 seconds. We fixed this by adjusting the time delay that indicates sleep as well as the maximum frequency that inidcated alpha waves. By adjusting one of these, we were able to give some "buffer" room that accounted for the noise. \nWe also faced significant challenges with building all of our desired features within our webapp. While we had intended to have real-time brain wave graphs in addition to our map view, this became out of scope due to time constraints. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - On the hardware end, we are extremely proud of the communication between the pi, the EEG, and our alerting system as well as the live data visualization of the brain activity. We're also happy with how clean and interactive our webapp turned out. What we learned: - We learned how to characterize brain waves by their frequency and how the brain waves are able to reflect a person's alertness. We also learned how to transmit information wirelessly using wifi servers (flask), how to call map APIs, and some basic UI/UX. What's next for Wake: - Our next steps are developing a more compact EEG so that drivers can comfortably wear the headset with the mounted alert system on the dashboard of the vehicle. Additionally, we would like to improve our data collection method to reduce noise and have more consistent alpha wave detection. On the software side, we will continue to work on including more informative data analysis so that users can gain more insights from our tech. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/handyman

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Automated machinery such as vending machines, ATMs, DVD rentals, and staffless restaurants are increasing in complexity and becoming more prevalent. Many customers have experienced a lot of complications with these machines -- but reporting it requires a phone call to a clumsy support line, making it difficult to get refunds and incredibly annoying for the customer. Handyman solves this by streamlining the process from a customer experiencing an error to a serviceman fixing it. What it does: - There is a web interface for a customer, which allows instant reporting for any issues they discover. They can provide a description and provide their email for easy refunds. When a customer submits an error, an administrator is notified via email, and they can go to the web dashboard to get started fixing errors. How we built it: - The websites were made using NextJS and TailwindCSS, while the backend scripts use Node/Express, and the data is stored using the sites and catalog APIs from NCR. The two frontend services are hosted on Vercel, and the backend server is hosted on Google Cloud Platform. Challenges we ran into: - \nNCR API issues: We had trouble updating items in the NCR catalog API, but we reached out to NCR's developers and found quick fixes\nHosting the application: Putting two websites online and one backend server online, and having them all communicate was no easy task, but with the help of mentors we got it done\nSecurity: Using NCR's APIs required complex authentication, and we added extra security in our front end\n Accomplishments that we're proud of: - \nThe idea\nThe security\nThe design\n What we learned: - A lot. We learned more about NCR APIs than we ever thought we could, and we learned a ton about JavaScript, NextJS, Express, Node, TailwindCSS, and even the Google Maps API in the process. What's next for Handyman: - \nAutomated refunds\nMore customization\nAutomated text message to submit error using Twilio\n First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/ceo-smi-o

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - The inspiration of our project was the gamification of shopping. Thus we wanted to draw on the addicting qualities of video games, especially gacha/loot boxes aspects and try to apply those within context of E-Commerce. We also loved a artist Smino so we based our website around him and his products. What it does: - So within our project, we used Figma and HTML/CSS/JavaScript to create a website that implements some of these addicting qualities of video games such as having a wheel/loot box, flashy advertisements, and point system. While not all of these were implemented within the final website, the wireframe would have those. How we built it: - We primarily used Figma to draft out our ideas, especially making each landing page. With the time constraints we were not able to implement every page the way we wanted to but we were also able to create a website using HTML/CSS. With this landing page we are able to just display some of the addictive qualities and learn a lot with certain aspects of front end development. Challenges we ran into: - Not only did we face challenges just trying to complete the project software wise, but also hardware wise. Two of our team members laptops broke during the weekend for various reasons and we had to get loaners, luckily most of the data was saved on the cloud. Software wise, there was a lot of learning, a lot of research in terms of teaching ourselves Figma and HTML/CSS/JavaScript. There were quite a few very time-consuming beginner mistakes made that we've definitely learned from and hope to not repeat next time. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - One thing that we're very proud of was being able to create a prototype on Figma that in our opinion looks decent! We also implemented a functional pop up window, little bouncing reward hitbox, and a wheel for the user to get hooked on after hours of research and trial and error. What we learned: - We learned a lot about Figma and HTML/CSS/JavaScript, coordinating front-end/backend and drafting/wire framing ideas of a website. There was a lot more within the specifics, but this was a great experience for us to have fun and work together and learn. What's next for CEO SMI-O: - Sleep. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/tecbook

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - In college, we often buy textbooks that we no longer need in the future. Whether it be for english class for the countless novels we read, or an algorithms class with a thick textbook that you've never read, we all have textbooks that we don't want, but others may need. One person's trash, another's treasure. What it does: - With this project, users can post textbooks that they have, along with a price they will sell it for. They will also post their phone number. Prospective buyers can find textbooks they would like to buy, and send the seller a text and exchange cash in person via venmo! How we built it: - Tecbook is a relatively robust yet standard webapp featuring a functional component based React frontend, as well as a Django backend. React creates API calls to Django, whether it be to query for existing sellings or to create a new selling. Users can also delete sellings that they listed! Challenges we ran into: - Being a hackathon in a short period of time, there were countless challenges in terms buildability. While using Django itself as a frontend and backend is very common, we wanted to interact React. However, React handles API calls differently than that of vanilla javascript (we can't use Ajax in React, had to use fetch). Being that we had to use fetch, we had to parse in the payload for a function differently than if it were in Javascript. Being that we wanted the webapp to be responsive and easy to use, we don't want the user to be navigating to too many panes or refresh their screen to see new listings when they post/remove a listing. Building an incredibly lightweight, responsive, and intuitive webapp where anyone can post a textbook within seconds was a big challenge we ran into, and one that needed careful planning to get over. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Even though we only had a short period of time developing this, we are proud of using a very professional stack with React and Django. The React and Django code is incredibly clean, with both being very separately coupled. It's very reasonable with the way the code is arranged to have a clear frontend and backend team to develop. Moreover, we are very proud of the styling of the website, as adding CSS makes the website visually pleasing to look at, which is crucial when using any website. We believe that the UI of the website is incredibly sleek, with users being able to post a textbook to sell within seconds, and buyers able to clearly see what textbook a user is selling, the class it's for, as well as the vendor's credentials. What we learned: - In this hackathon, we've learned that some sacrifices had to be made for code quality. It's not reasonable to expect a perfectly developed project, featuring clean APIs and a robust database. Even though we had a Django backend, there actually is no Database (everything is stored in a variable in the backend). While this isn't ideal, it gets the job done for a hackathon and we are proud with the final product we've made. What's next for TecBook: - There are countless improvements to be made for Tecbook. It would be incredible if users could search up for a specific class they want to buy a textbook for, as well as sorting the listings by price. Currently, only people wanting to sell textbooks can make a listing. If users wanted to post that they wanted to buy a book (a buy request, instead of a selling), that would create a 2 way market stream that would make things easy for both parties (people selling and buying books). Next, Tecbook can expand to other colleges, rather than only for Georgia Tech, allowing students from other schools to post their textbooks for their own schools' 'Tecbook' First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/climate-time-chamber

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - For as long as we can remember, climate change has always been a serious issue. We all hear about it on the news and from our teachers and educators. The temperature is rising, sea levels are rising, and the amazon is burning. More prolonged intense droughts threaten crops, wildlife, and freshwater supplies. From polar bears to marine turtles, our planet's diversity of life is at risk from the changing climate. But beyond just the wildlife, we, as human beings, are also at risk. In just the United States alone, about 40% of the population lives in or near coastal cities, the kind of cities most affected by climate change and rising sea levels. From all of this, we at Team Three Star came up with the idea to create the Climate Time Chamber. The Climate Time Chamber is a website that simulates different possible futures. The user can adjust various settings and see how their decisions affect the world around them. Our intention when creating the Climate Time Chamber is to raise awareness about climate change and connect people who want to learn more with resources and information. What it does: - The first and central feature of The Climate Time Chamber is to simulate different possible futures. You can move five different sliders representing various economic sectors that contribute to global emissions. Each slider is weighed differently in close relation to its real-life counterparts. This means the energy sector has more influence on the outcome than the buildings sector. By clicking simulate, you will get a different future depending on what you choose for the emission levels for each sector. This simulation feature lets you easily visualize how the future will turn out if we don't do anything about this global emergency. The user is then presented with a future that reflects their choice. Challenges we ran into: - As an emerging group, we had our fair shares of challenges and difficulties:\nWe did not know where to start. This was probably the biggest challenge we had. We were given so much freedom and broad choices for our project that we could not immediately agree on what to work on, and we even had to scrap some project initiates and ideas along the way.\nNot every member of our group was familiar with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which led to some members having to familiarize themselves with a new language in 36 hours.\nOur group's last challenge was trying to have a finished product within this time frame.\nAlthough we were able to implement our ideas and designs, we could have definitely made something more polished given more time. What we learned: - We learned a lot about web development through this process and have come to appreciate all the hard work that goes into making a website both functional and have a great design. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/swipe-tinder-for-stocks-crypto

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Some of humanities' greatest desires are love and money. After seeing how dating apps have helped individuals discover love, we decided to help individuals discover wealth through the same simple concept of swiping right or left. What it does: How we built it: - The front end is created in Flutter, allowing us to ship Android, IOS, and web versions of the application. Asset information is retrieved with the Yahoo Finance API and parsed on the local device. We also use the NewsAPI.org to gather relevant news about each asset. Challenges we ran into: Accomplishments that we're proud of: What we learned: What's next for Swipe: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/proximity-98cfek

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - When planning and prototyping our design for Proximity, we looked at current leaders in successful social media, such as Tiktok and Facebook. Furthermore, we were inspired by addictive games that we grew up with, like Candy Crush, Angry Birds, and Crossy Road. Ultimately, we knew we had to incorporate seamless transitions and bright colors, along with plenty of notifications along the way in order to replicate some of our childhoods' favorite apps. What it does: - Proximity is a social network for shopping, rewarding a user for sharing their purchasing history with others and spending their time with us. A user gains points by interacting with the site through a variety of different ways: browsing through items, linking their social media to the app, inviting friends, and spending money for in-store credit. How we built it: - Our first step was to heavily prototype using Figma. We ideated for all the features that our product could potentially have and began working through each one both individually and as a team so that we could establish which ones were feasible and which ones were not. Our final prototype is the conclusion of about 15 features that narrowed down to a handful of fully fleshed out attributes. Next, we took our frames in Figma and connected them together to create a map of how our consumers would flow through our app. Here, we were able to add and remove some pages that enriched the consumer experience. Our final step was to take all of our design components and put it into React Native, translating our design decisions into a functional application. Here, we also utilized Google’s Firebase to centralize the username and password data that users would provide for access into our app. Challenges we ran into: - All three of us were faced with using platforms and languages that we had little to no experience with, so this entire hackathon was learning by ear for us. Coming up with an idea for this hackathon was also a large hurdle because we were unsure of whether we should have focused on a challenge or worked free of restriction. Lastly, a minor challenge that we had was that our late-stage designs became too far fetched for our developers to code into existence in the short timespan that we had left. Though most of our ideas were replicated in our preliminary version of the application, there are plenty of features that we’re looking forward to adding in future versions of Proximity. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - For a 3-person group for most of whom it was our first in-person hackathon, we’re proud of getting a feasible idea from our collective mind onto an artistic palette as well as a working application. We focused primarily on the design of Proximity, knowing that we were limited in how much we could translate into the app. Therefore, we have great pride in the resulting Figma design and transitions that we put together in our first time using the platform. What we learned: - We learned that we should spend more time considering the feasibility of ideas and their features before prototyping. We lost a couple hours of precious time because we began prototyping ideas that ultimately had no relation to the challenge we were attempting or because we had a board of ideas that we could not decide between. Additionally, we came to understand some tips and tricks that we could use in our development of the design. What's next for Proximity: - As the name suggests, we’re hopeful for incorporating location-based data into our app. With an ever-growing network of consumers, users will be able to see what friends around them are purchasing so that they’ll always be up-to-date on new trends and brands. Additionally, we could partner with nearby stores, ranging from large retail corporations to smaller neighborhood stores so that our consumers can capitalize on the credit we offer. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/anime-wrapped

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Mainstream music, television and cinema all have abundant analytical platforms. However, we noticed that many niche forms of entertainment such as Japanese anime lack these tools. As avid anime watchers ourselves, we know the wide variety of genres out there and are familiar with the anime community's desire to analyze and share anime. We are confident that our project will be embraced by this community. What it does: - We decided to leverage the API of the popular anime database MyAnimeList (MAL) to provide users with dynamic, personalized analytics on their viewership. Our platform analyzes user trends to deliver detailed commentary about their anime viewing history and make suggestions for the future. How we built it: - After deciding on the idea, we spent a few hours on Figma prototyping our project and discussing what features to add. For the actual implementation, we created a GitHub repository with separate branches and worked on separate components on our own. In terms of the actual technologies, in the backend, we integrated MAL's RESTful API, writing a NodeJS script to implement OAuth authentication. In the frontend, we used AngularJS as our framework, wherein we wrote code in HTML, CSS preprocessors such as SCSS, and JavaScript/TypeScript. Challenges we ran into: - Our biggest challenge was definitely a lack of experience. With only one member experienced in web development frameworks, there was a learning curve for a lot of the team. However, the whole team learned on the job and contributed a fair amount to the final product. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Despite the aforementioned lack of experience, we accomplished a great amount in the little time we had to learn. We managed to make a great looking application, using open source themes and a user-friendly scrollable interface. Most importantly, we are very proud of how well we collaborated, treating everyone else with respect and fixing each other's bugs whenever required. What we learned: - We learned a great amount in front-end frameworks and languages, API integration including authentication, data analytics, and version control––skills that we will definitely build on in the future. What's next for Anime Wrapped: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/atlas-store

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - A lot of members from our group have fallen to the gaming tactics and we know a lot of the methods that the games use to reel the player bases in. What it does: - Use gaming tactics commonly found to make users feel more engaged and invested than traditional e-commerce stores. How we built it: - The web app is built in the MERN stack with MongoDB Atlas as the database, Express.js and Node.js as the backend, and React as the frontend of the project. Challenges we ran into: - We were new to all of the technologies and the whole time we were trying to learn the syntax and implementation of each of them. Time was a really big problem as we were trying to learn everything and apply our knowledge at the same time. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We have a working web page that accomplishes our purpose of creating a gamified store. What we learned: - A lot. What's next for Atlas Store: - Currency purchase feature, daily login streak, and a loot box mechanic for items. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/dormeats-27oayx

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - During the brainstorming stage, our team shared our individual struggles with the college experience in hopes of finding a solution that could truly impact our lives. - We found a common passion with food. Not only is food a necessity in life, but it is also a way to connect with others. Some of us are forced to cook for ourselves in order to save money, but it is extremely difficult to find the time to consistently shop for ingredients and prepare them while juggling our busy academic and personal lives. In general, students struggle with eating at college, and many of our friends have had to skip meals because of intense workloads. As a solution, we wanted to find a cheaper and more convenient way of feeding college students that didn’t involve on-campus dining or getting takeout. On the other hand, many students love cooking but don’t have many people to share it with. This will give them an option to share food with people in their dorm and meet people along the way. What it does: - Our website connects hungry students with fellow students who can cook in an effort to save money, curb food waste, and make some new friends while enjoying delicious homemade food. - Students who can cook can make a profile and describe dishes that they’re willing to cook for others. These will appear to hungry students in a gallery view with an image of the dish, ingredients list, and cook’s profile. When a hungry student orders a dish, a chat will be opened up between the two for the logistics and transaction to occur. - If there is something specific that students want to eat, a request for a dish can be submitted by sending in a name and dish description. These listings will appear in a gallery to cooks who can then choose some to fulfill if they wish. - In addition, our website helps reduce food waste through our pantry option, which allows users to list their unused ingredients. Instead of throwing out raw materials that may go bad, students can list it on the website for anyone to take. Those struggling to afford groceries or finding the time and transportation to get groceries can also benefit from this open pantry. How we built it: - First, we used Figma to create a design of what we wanted each page to look at. After doing this, we implemented our design with React by using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and stored all of our site’s internal data in MongoDB. To connect the database to the frontend, we utilized Express and Node.js. Challenges we ran into: - We ran into challenges using React since many members in our team were not familiar with the syntax for it. This was the biggest challenge throughout our project, as we ended up trying to learn React while creating our project at the same time. We were also under the assumption that our Figma would be of more use to our frontend code, but found that simply converting the code to React was not feasible with our resources. We also ran into a time crunch when trying to implement more functional features in our prototype website. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are most proud of the main features of our product and the aesthetics we created in our Figma design. None of us had a lot of experience with design in websites, so half of our team worked hard to create a design that would be easy to understand and pleasing to view. We're extremely proud of our use of MongoDB and the working login page and profile page. With our project, a user had to create a login page in order to access the profile page, and it was fully functional. Lastly, we're proud that we were able to implement all the pages we planned to some extent through code. What we learned: - We learned a lot about React and web development in general. Our team knew the basics of web development, but after working on this project, we feel much more confident in our abilities, especially in terms of using React. We also learned more about using a backend database to store our internal data, and expanded out knowledge about MongoDB and Express. For one of the team members, she wasn't even able to implement React in her hackathon, and felt that she learned a lot making this project with her teammates. What's next for DormEats: - Next for DormEats, we want to finish implementing our Figma in general and adding the design for all of the pages we filled out. We want to create a more interactive design where users and customers can connect more easily. We also want to approach the sustainability side of our website more by putting more features in the Pantry page and expanding onto that side of the project. We also want to be able to use authenticate accounts so that only people with a .edu email address can join the university community . First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/buzzcoin

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We were inspired by NCR's cryptocurrency NCR-100 and how you can participate in events to earn coins. We wanted to bring this idea into the Georgia Tech community and that's how we came up with the idea for BuzzCoin. What it does: - BuzzCoin is a virtual cryptocurrency backed by an original blockchain built from scratch. The blockchain implements methods such as hashing, registering nodes, key generation and allowing for decentralization through a P2P network. Furthermore, in our web-app, users are able to register and log into accounts, view the blockchain, mine transactions for BuzzCoins, and view account information. How we built it: - We built the blockchain from scratch using Python. The blockchain has the necessary methods that allow for all the basic functionalities of a cryptocurrency. Our web-app was built using Flask and HTML. It accurately displays all information, and handles all the methods that we implemented in our blockchain. Challenges we ran into: - Project structure was a major challenge that we ran into as our classes became more complex and interacted heavily with each other. Creating the blockchain from scratch was also no easy feat as even the most rudimentary implementation of a blockchain is fairly complex and time consuming. Finally, combining the blockchain implementation and displaying the necessary information on our web-app proved to be the most difficult challenge we faced. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Creating a blockchain from scratch, building the web-app, and combining both into a cohesive project is what we are most proud of. What we learned: - Through our project, we learned a lot about how modern day cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin utilize blockchain technology and proof of work system to be a valuable store of wealth. Crypto is quickly evolving into a major facet of society, and the knowledge we gained will surely be useful in the near future. Furthermore, learning how to create a functioning web-app is an extremely useful skillset to have. What's next for BuzzCoin: - We hope that we can expand upon BuzzCoin and bring it into the daily lives of Georgia Tech students. Perhaps students will be able to purchase dining hall food, school supplies or even attend school events using BuzzCoins in the near future. The possibilities are endless. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/scavenger-e1lra8

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Health is of utmost importance, and what better way to exercise than to compete with others around the globe. This app was inspired by an increased awareness in health concerns among the general public. We hope to bring people together in a friendly competition and explore the world around them, from small shops to great landmarks. What it does: - It currently contains information about Georgia Tech, LA, and other locations. We can pull some types of data from the database and store it in SwiftUI. It also contains a login system with a map view that shows the locations we pulled. How we built it: - We split into 4 subteams. One person worked with the design component of the app, from color schemes to icon placement. Another person worked on building the UI design on SwiftUI. The third member of our group communicated with the FourSquare Places API to get a bunch of information about regions in GT, LA, and more, and stored it in the Firebase Firestore database. The 4th member created helper functions that interfaced with SwiftUI and the database. Challenges we ran into: - Many of us were new to SwiftUI, so there was a big learning curve understanding many of Swift's concepts. Also, interfacing with Firebase and Swift was sometimes a bit complicated. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of creating a successful API connection to FourSquare and sending information to firebase. We are also proud of creating a backend system that can help interface with SwiftUI. What we learned: - We learned a lot about Swift and how to interface with Databases not limited to Firebase. We also learned a lot about backend development and how to organize it. For example, we went from creating a REST API with Node.js/Python to controlling backend with swift itself. We also learned a lot about APIs, such as retrieving and sending data from various sources. What's next for Scavenger: - Scavenger can improve on a lot of aspects. For example, the first thing would be to clean up the UI and finish up the interface between SwiftUI and Firebase. We want to add the functionality to show leaderboards, show nearby locations based on user location, and display and list all the challenges in a given regions. Additionally, we want to implement a recommendation system that takes in daily steps, where one takes those steps, number of challenges completed, types of challenges completed, types of regions visited, and other factors to recommend certain regions and challenges that might interest the user. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/mealsecure

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We were inspired to create MealSecure to combat the lack of awareness about the inaccessibility of food across the US. What it does: - MealSecure uses data about places with limited access to food to encourage people to support a list of non-profit organizations that work to establish food security for all. How we built it: - We used Pandas to clean/interpret a 2019 USDA database with around 72,000 entries. We used Python, HTML, and CSS. Challenges we ran into: - We struggled with finding this database. At first, we spent a great deal of time researching potential APIs (Google Cloud included). Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We're proud of using Flask to connect our front- and backend. What we learned: - We learned that working without an API is quite difficult. We also learned how to work with GitHub and how to resolve merge conflicts. What's next for MealSecure: - We would like to create a visual representation for the number of people a user's donation would affect so that they can see how much of an impact they can make in their specific communities. We would also like to use APIs to more easily access a greater and more up-to-date pool of data to use. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/sustainbl

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - After going to Georgia Tech dining every day, we inevitably noticed the amount of food that gets thrown in the garbage bin. Additionally, living across a grocery store we noticed the same trend in terms of food wastage. After doing some research we noticed how Georgia Tech pushed for sustainability in the food wastage space in ways such as campus composting, increasing food supply etc. The statistic in this space is very alarming as well and this inspired us to re-imagine what sustainability in food wastage should be. What it does: How we built it: - We used ReactJS with Chakra UI library to build the front end. For the backend we used LSTMs with tensorflow, OpenCV. APIs used were Google Maps API, Python Flask API, Tableau Visualization API. SQL and firebase were our databases. We also used ExpressJS to connect the frontend with the backend. For data analytics we used tableau. In the backend, we used LSTMs to predict time series demand data. Furthermore, we utilized OpenCV to create a freshness score for vegetables and fruits. We also have a proprietary algorithm that automatically generates prices to increase demand and reduce wastage. Challenges we ran into: - Working with the time series data was difficult because there was a lot of data involved. We ended up using LSTMs - which we are quite proud of. Our frontend was also very challenging, but over the course of the hackathon, we learned and improved.\nInitially planned to build hardware using a visible light sensor, Arduino, etc to detect whether a particular product is rotten or not. However, due to lack of hardware availability we had to change our approach and achieved similar results with images from a camera using Computer Vision Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of the computer vision part of our project. It was something out of our comfort zone but we thought it would be useful if you could figure out a way to implement it. We ran into a few challenges when it came to training data and ultimately making a front end for it but it was totally worth it! What we learned: - One of our biggest takeaways was the power of data and cannot only be used to increase consumer behavior by having pricing algorithms but also give valuable insights such as demand, supply and sales of various items to help grocers with demand expectation. What's next for sustainbl.: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/optimeal

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: The Problem at Hand: - InForMeal is a webapp that aims to serve the population of Georgia Tech. By asking whether an item on the menu is in a certain dining hall to those in the location, real-time information can be gained to represent the true offerings of the dining hall. - All too often, the complaint has been heard from our peers regarding the fact that they never know what a particular dining hall is going to have. This rings especially true for those who hold dietary restrictions. Gluten-free, soy-free, vegan, and vegetarian students, plus those with allergies or other restrictions, are often unable to properly plan their meals because they can never be sure what they’ll actually find. This is where InForMeal comes into play. What's InForMeal?: - InForMeal is a tool designed to be supported by mobile users, but accessible from anywhere. It works in two parts. Firstly, webpages that can be found via a scannable QR code are accessed by mobile users as they enter or exit a dining hall. It then asks them up to three yes or no questions on whether certain food items are available. Based on the crowd-sourced responses, the results are displayed on InForMeal’s main webpage, accessible by anyone, from any device. How Does it Work?: - Behind the scenes, it’s a bit more complicated. Georgia Tech technically holds a deal for menu management with Nutrislice. However, the contents of Nutrislice rarely match reality. Having said that, Nutrislice provides a viable starting point for InForMeal to step in by providing a list of the possible foods that Georgia Tech could offer in their dining halls. These lists are updated daily by the server’s backend, composed of numerous python scripts working in conjunction with the Django framework. Whenever a user visits a “polling site” through the QR codes, they are met with three questions selected by the backend. - Meanwhile, when a user visits the “menu site”, the program accesses all foods offered for the closest meal: breakfast for anytime before 10:00 am, lunch for any time between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm, and dinner for any time after 2:00 pm. Should any food have been marked by a significant number of users as “not in the dining halls”, a warning label is displayed next to it to emphasize the lack of availability. Users can also use a toggle along the top navigation bar to switch their dining hall. Trials and Tribulations: - In approaching such a complex project, there were certainly some challenges involved. Originally we had imagined creating a mobile app, before noting that none of us had experience doing so. When a web app was finally decided on and Django was selected, we discovered it was a new framework for all but one of us. Finally, we also struggled to come up with branding - chiefly, a name. It took nearly the full hackathon for us to move beyond our working title of “CrowdDine”. - Despite these challenges, however, our team was able to finish with a completed product, not something that every team of first-years can say themselves. Conclusion: - Overall, we’re very proud of the work we put in and the tool we were able to produce. We are confident in its ability to improve dining and support the wider Georgia Tech community. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/touchless-self-checkout-kiosk

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - The Covid-19 pandemic brings to light an increasing need for public hygiene and safety measures to control the spread of dangerous diseases. We present a Touchless Self-Checkout Kiosk -- a technology that allows users to perform hand gestures to operate a self checkout kiosk, so that they can touchlessly scan, process, and purchase essentials while minimizing their risk of contracting disease. Other forms of contactless shopping exist, but they often are only available to customers who have smartphones, internet plans, etc. Our solution is unique in that it has little barrier to entry for the user -- anyone can walk in a store and use the Touchless Self-Checkout Kiosk. Thus, we believe that our solution will greatly impact underprivileged communities, which have been hit especially hard by the global pandemic. What it does: - The functionalities are simple. Users can touchlessly scan item barcodes and use intuitive hand gestures to operate a self-checkout kiosk (start scanning, undo item, select payment, ask for assistance). How we built it: - The front-end component is a react native web app that provides all of the user functionalities. The front-end app queries (REST API) the back-end app running locally, which deploys the machine learning models that detect/classify hand gestures and item barcodes. We used an open source machine learning model architecture and weights to implement a state-of-the-art hand gesture recognition algorithm. We used an open source library for vision-based barcode reading. Challenges we ran into: - Sending video/image data from the front-end to the back-end was especially challenging, as react native does not have a good way of collecting frames at the desired FPS for our machine learning model. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - The gesture recognition model is a good mix between lightweight and powerful. A lot of effort went into deploying the model in an efficient enough manner for real-time gesture recognition, and the results are very good. What we learned: - We learned that proper team balance and allocation of time is critical for completing demanding projects. What's next for Touchless Self-Checkout Kiosk: - Hopefully we will be able to flesh out more comprehensive features (payment, store catalog) so that the kiosk will be fully functional for general use in any store. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/golden-jackets

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Avid fans of card games and interested in how they can be involved in retail gamification. What it does: - Creates a Pawn Shop that sells products which chances to get up to $250 dollars off through the rewards systems, an aspect of retail-gamification. Stores user information in a database such as rewards, coupon codes, usernames, and passwords. How we built it: - Using React, we designed a website that users interact with, which is combined with a MySQL database that stores user information for the developers to manage on the backend. Challenges we ran into: - Neither of us were familiar with using React that interacts with a MySQL server\nnpm modules installed from the internet would have issues when pushed through git from MacOs to Windows operating systems. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Create a working website that successfully interacts with MySQL server based on user inputs and interactions with the website. What we learned: - How to use React and MySQL together\nLearning to account for edge cases in user information in the backend What's next for Golden Jackets: - Redesigning the website for a cleaner and more pleasing aesthetic\nLooking for more edge cases with user interactions and updating from there First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/bumble-buddy

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We were inspired by students at our college. What it does: - This app helps students find people to walk with, especially late at night. How we built it: - We built it using react. Challenges we ran into: - Google Maps was hard to integrate. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Getting a somewhat functional app. What we learned: - A lot of React. What's next for Bumble Buddy: - Making the app better and more usable. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/visualizing-inequalities-and-covid-19-fatality-rates

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We were inspired by the wealth of information available on COVID 19, but wanted to make a tailored tool for health officials and policymakers. Thus, we've created an easy-to-interpret data visualization tool that could be critical for health officials who are making key decisions regarding COVID-19. What it does: - Our website takes socioeconomic factors, such as income per capita and poverty levels, and demographic information in order to present a bar graph showcasing the impact of each of these variables on COVID-19 fatality rates. Users are able to select a US State to see this bar graph, and in future versions, we hope to show more information about each of the specific factors. In order to create our bar graphs, we trained a random forest classifier using data points based on county data. We also used permutation feature importance to gain insight into the variables associated with the fatality rate. Overall, our model identified the impact of each socioeconomic variable on the fatality rate. - This website (currently in demo form) will aid health officials and inform policy-making. How we built it: - We built the project using Google Colaboratory and Python with data pre-processing based partly from the work by Ayan Paul et al. Our data was sourced from the USA Census Bureau and the Johns Hopkins University, Center for Systems Science and Engineering database. Challenges we ran into: - The main challenge we ran into was finding a suitable source of data. We eventually solved this issue after researching various health documents and then finding the databases from the USA Census Bureau and the Johns Hopkins University, Center for Systems Science and Engineering database. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of how the model generalizes trends from the county level to the state level. Such information could be extremely useful for officials making statewide decisions. - We are also proud of the final design of the website pages as we feel that they effectively convey the information from our model while also providing a good user experience. What we learned: - We learned how to organize and process huge datasets. We also learned more about data communication and visualization, for example how the way data is presented is often affected by the target audience. What's next for Visualizing Inequalities and COVID-19 Fatality Rates: - We will expand upon this project by building a full website containing a map of the US which users can interact with to visualize socioeconomic inequalities in all 50 states. Beyond this, we would also like to increase the scale of our project to include more countries and exist on a global scale. Citation: - Data pre-processing is partly based on the work by Ayan Paul, Philipp Englert, and Melinda Varga\nCitation: Ayan Paul et al 2021 J. Phys. Complex. 2 035017 \nLink: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/gum-ai

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We wanted to help change the outcomes of people who are struggling to manage certain aspects of their lives, especially when it comes to disadvantaged communities. Furthermore, we wanted to implement computer vision in a way that was exciting and innovative. Finally, we wanted an app with cute animals in it. So, we thought of gum.AI; a fun way to use computer vision to see the quality of your teeth and get people interested in their dental hygiene, an issue that affects millions of people every day. gum.AI also includes a cute cat mascot, Gumai. Gumai reports your results to you, and celebrates when your teeth look healthy. What it does: - Our app is meant to help its users manage their dental hygiene by allowing them to take a picture of their mouths to get a very basic report back on the quality of their mouth’s health. For this hackathon, we picked a disease--in this case, bulimia--as a proof of concept for detecting specific illnesses. Our app intakes a picture of someone’s mouth and reports whether or not they have bulimia. How we built it: - Our app used Python and TensorFlow with (name of packages) to develop the CV model. We developed our frontend with Figma. Challenges we ran into: - Our project and its scope had to be adjusted numerous times throughout the process. Developing iteratively is obviously not an option during a hackathon, so issues were harder to anticipate and we had to act quickly when we realized we were faced with an insurmountable problem. - We came into a hackathon looking for a crash course in new skills--and we definitely got this--but despite our backend coding expertise, our lack of frontend experience served as a significant roadblock, especially as we were starting out. We began to think we may not even develop a front end. Looking back, it is great we were able to find ways around our issues and still achieve our original goal. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We have achieved a very good accuracy on our computer vision model; it detects bulimia with 99% accuracy. We believe we can do even better with marginally more data. - For the amount of time we had, we are pleased with our front end; we believe it is concise, visually appealing, and lends itself to ease of use. - Gumai is great and we are very pleased to have a cute animal mascot. What we learned: - All team members were exposed to front-end development, which was very new for all of us. We explored many different possibilities for creating a front end for our model, and learned so much about the pros and cons to different frameworks and factors that go into deciding things like whether to make an app or website. Essentially, all of our team members got a crash course in front end development. - Half of our team was new to computer vision, so we got excellent exposure to how CV models work and are trained. Most notably, we observed the powerful impacts that even marginally different training datasets have on the quality of our model. What's next for gum.AI: - gum.AI has proven that it is not just viable, but fairly straightforward to make a basic CV algorithm which checks for the dental health of its users. In the future, instead of just checking for one arbitrary illness, gum.AI can be taught the differences between a whole host of dental ailments and raise red flags to the user in case it sees any issues. Gumai’s purpose is to help people generally maintain their teeth, so it could even potentially also send notification reminders to brush one’s teeth or give suggestions on improving dental care based on the recent images sent in. We believe gum.AI has real potential to help people establish routines and become very dedicated towards maintaining the health of their mouths and teeth. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/teach-me-2-dance

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Problem Statement: - According to a recent study by Arnold School of Public Health, only about 21 percent of US teens actively engage in dancing. A significant number of people who do not dance are just too shy to do so in front of others or even ask anyone to teach them how to dance. Suggested Solutions: - DanceWithMe.AI app aims to help such people by, first, breaking down complex dances into a series of moves for them to follow, then comparing their dance with the ideal version to provide feedback through scores, and finally encourage them to challenge their peers to dance off in dance battles. Tech Stack: - We used Node.JS and Python along with Google Cloud Storage, Google Compute Engine and Firebase for the backend, React.JS, HTML, CSS and Flutter for the frontend and MediaPipe’s pose estimation for figuring out the location of the dancer and their distance from the ideal dance pose. Moving Forward: Let's Talk Money: - In future, we plan to partner with stores to help with their promotion by letting them award coupons to leaderboard position holders and winners of dance battles. Randomly choosing the dance battles to award coupons to would not only help us promote the stores, but it will also help us with user retention on the platform. Apart from this, we also plan to take cuts from the money paid using DancePay and monetize the application using Google AdSense, but only if doing so maintains a decent user experience. - _Note: In case our YouTube link is broken, please use this link to access our demo video First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/connectmedical

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: As a premedical student, I have seen many patients during my time volunteering and shadowing. I especially felt for elderly patients that I witnessed forget the names of their medications and return with worse symptoms than before due to negative medication interactions.: What it does: Our website is a platform that centralizes communication between doctors, patients, and pharmacists in an easy-to-use format. Doctors can prescribe medications, pharmacists can fill the medication and the patient can receive updates and ask questions as needed.: How we built it: We used Heroku, PHP, and MySQL in order to deploy our web portal and database.: Challenges we ran into: Initial idea was beyond the scope of our knowledge. Ended up having to pivot and split teams.: Accomplishments that we're proud of: We learned a lot during the course of this project as somewhat inexperienced hackers. We have gained confidence in the use of Heroku, MySQL, and PHP.: What we learned: MySQL, PHP, and HTML: What's next for ConnectMedical: We hope to possibly pursue this idea to completion.: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/hypercut

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: What is Hypercut?: - Watch what matters most - Hypercut is an app that makes your videos shorter. It extracts features from the audio track to identify pauses and prioritize phrases. Users can control how to cut the video, from slightly speeding up pauses, all the way down to a two-sentence summary. Why would I use Hypercut?: - It's easy to lose your audience's attention, especially with non-interactive videos. Hypercut can keep your audience interested by livening the pace of the video or even finding the most interesting parts of the video. - Hypercut could be used on lecture videos to make quick crash-course style reviews. Hypercut is also great for building a highlight reel of business announcements, conference proceedings, or news. This is especially relevant for making quick 30 second videos for social media. Fancy... How does the tech work?: - The app begins by uploading an audio file to the Hypercut backend for feature extraction. Hypercut uses speech-to-text to identify timestamps of words and pauses. Using a modified implementation PageRank, Hypercut can assign a priority value to phrases. - The feature extraction information is sent back to the app, where the user can drag sliders, forming exclusion criteria for the features. Finally, the app encodes a new video from the selected features. How did you make that UI?!: - The design is inspired by the principles of neomorphism and magnetism. These principles help build tactile and responsive software interfaces. - The interface is built with custom SwiftUI components. They are built by stacking lots of rectangles and text boxes with custom computational drag-resistant micro animations. Cool right? What's next for Hypercut: - Hypercut is only a few steps away from detecting sonifications like "ummm" and "like". iPad support is also a near goal. A little more into the future, we believe Hypercut could provide a suite of tools for live audio, like in Zoom calls, where it could remove "ummm" and "like" on the spot! With a touch of neural voice puppetry, we see Hypercut being able to provide a virtual camera to users, masking filler speech and unwanted visual disruptions to provide the best, most professional live presentation possible! - And that's not all. Hypercut can be further extended to help students and professionals review material, better and faster. We already have word-by-word timestamps, which can provide Hypercut users a way to quickly search through videos by text. Hypercut also finds the most relevant information in presentations, allowing us to provide video summaries in both text and video. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/blooddonors

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - COVID-19 Sucks. Across the world, hospitals are facing a blood supply crisis as a side effect of the pandemic. After all, if even going to the grocery store is considered a battleground, there just isn't enough incentive to donate. but the need for blood doesn't stop, not even for a worldwide pandemic. We wanted to create a new app that would usher in a new generation of blood donors and keep existing ones coming back to help save lives. What it does: - Our web app is designed to make donating blood and plasma fun and fruitful for younger generations. What do young people go crazy over? Cute cats! By gamifying the process of donating, providers are now able to attract a larger audience of healthy donors. Users are able to sign up for blood donation appointments through the web application, and our partnered clinics will be able to reward them with experience and other rewards upon completion. Each user has an account that keeps track of the amount they donate whether it be blood or plasma. - Instead of resorting to monetary incentives, our app uses a much more addictive and sustainable currency - competition and satisfaction. We connected the amount someone donates to a carefully calculated points system, which they would be able to spend on interacting with their own personal feline companion. With enough interactions, the user can level up and earn badges to feel accomplished. Not only will they be a hero for saving lives through their blood, but they can also feel satisfied having the most decked out trophy room and the happiest cat. There is also a leaderboard to ignite the competitive spirit in their hearts! - As our service grows, we plan on partnering with food and beverage companies to ensure our users are in tip-top shape to continue staying healthy and donating. Each company will be able to provide coupons, which are then redeemable by our users after a donation. What's not to love about donating blood and eating good because of it? - Overall, our service helps users connect with local clinics and stay motivated to keep donating. We all benefit from having more blood available! How we built it: - We used Django REST Framework to build the API and we used React to build the frontend. - In the backend, we implemented functions to create and update user profiles, appointments, providers, coupons, and badges. We also created functions to return lists of users and appointments to power our leaderboards. We also used NCR's API in order to store our providers to display in the frontend. - In the frontend, we used components from the Ant Design library to build out the leaderboards, profile page, home page, and about page. We learned about state hooks and inheriting components in order to dynamically update our pages. We also created helper functions to call our backend API and transfer data between the full-stack application. What we learned: - One of our members participated remotely from Texas, making it difficult to coordinate together and stay on track. Additionally, this was the first time many of us have used React and worked on front-end development, and we learned a lot about many of the challenges and obstacles one would face in this field. Learning to work with different API's and linking the front-end to the back-end was quite the challenge as well, and we have gained a lot of experience in the entire software development process as a result. What's next for BloodDonors: - Our main short-term goals are fine tuning the front end and migrating the SQL to Google Cloud Platform. We also plan on fully gamifying the process with the feline companion as well as gacha mechanics. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/tren

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Our inspiration came from our daily lives. Notetaking is a task that has no business being as tedious as it is. \nTren revolutionizes the way students take notes. It promotes collaboration and provides an excellent resource for students so that they can excel in their classes. What it does: - What Tren does is simple on the surface, yet very impactful and thoughtful. Tren provides students a platform to upload their notes and get a unified document that contains the best parts of each student's notes. It also provides students with a post feed for talking about their classes and relieving stress. How we built it: - We decided to build Tren as a web app. We use Flask for our backend and use React for the frontend. Our ML model implements tf-idf for computing similarity between texts. Challenges we ran into: - One challenge that we ran into was that none of us had much web dev experience and hence it slowed us down tremendously. Our future goals include being proficient at web-dev, Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We were able to create a beautiful landing page in the limited time constraints and we were also able to implement TF-IDF for our merging algorithm. Those are the accomplishments we are the most proud of. What we learned: - We learned a lot about web development and NLP. What's next for Tren.: - Tren. is highly scalable. It can be immediately adopted by any college or school without any overhead costs. We envision a future in which students have one less thing to worry about and can have easy and organized access to notes. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/patronus-pet-cam

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We noticed that many pet lovers are afraid to let their small pets out of their cages, such as birds and lizards. Their main concern of letting their pets out unsupervised is they might disappear. Just imagine you let your bird out when you go out and couldn't find them anywhere when you got back. They might be chilling on the top of the shelf. They might be hidden under your bed and you can accidentally crash it. We can totally sympathize with the frustration, so we wanted to help pet lovers to always know where their pets are. Even tiny ones. What it does: - It keeps track of the location of pets and keeps track of their last seen location if they go out of sight. How we built it: - We used TensorFlow model to detect common pets. We built an android app to help users see their pet's location and google cloud storage is used to store the images. Challenges we ran into: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/fitmoji

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We were inspired by companies such as TaoBao, who employ retail gamification as a part of their business strategies. What it does: - FitMoji allows users to create a personal avatar that displays specific clothing combinations. Retail companies provide a catalog of clothing which users can use for their FitMoji. Users then vote on the best outfit, and this outfit will be available at the end of the week for a discounted price. This gives users a more social experience even as they are online shopping. In addition, users are also able to post pictures of their outfits to earn points and interact with their friends. These points can then be used to earn rewards. How we built it: - This app was built using Android Studio using the programming language Kotlin. Additionally, we use FireBase to authenticate users and to create user profiles. Before implementing any code, we diagrammed the GUI and worked out the flow of the application. Challenges we ran into: - One of the challenges we ran into was creating the implementation of the voting platform. We had to figure out how to store the submitted FitMojis and how many times they are liked or disliked. It was also our first time being exposed to Android Studio and Kotlin, so we had to learn how to use that. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - One of the accomplishments we are proud of was implementing the FitMaker page. In this page we had to be able to customize our FitMoji with various pieces of clothing and being able to code all of this was a big task. Once we finally finished it was our biggest achievement. What we learned: - We learned how to use Android Studio and Kotlin. In addition, we had to create icons and design the UI in a way that is aesthetically pleasing, which is a part of software development we didn't have much exposure to. What's next for FitMoji: - There are several things we want to implement in the future for FitMoji. One of them is Personalized Avatars. Users will be able to create an avatar that reflects them in real life. We hope to do this using a FaceLens technology that can create avatars in an intuitive manner. Another thing we want to implement is Notifications as well as a friend system. For example, when a friend posts then the user will receive a notification. The user will also receive a notification when their FitMoji is trending and getting many votes. We also want to implement recommendation algorithms using machine learning, as this will allow us to cater content to the user and show them outfits they like more as they continue to use the app. Furthermore, we want to have special holiday events that will give users exclusive content for using FitMoji during a limited time. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/local-farm-connector

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Weirdly enough, all 4 of our group members attended the same high school and all took a human geography class in which our teacher encouraged us to volunteer at a local organic farm. Through volunteering at the nearby, non-GMO farm that none of us had ever heard of, we learned first-hand about how difficult it can be for local farmers with the best intentions to connect with their community What it does: - Our platform allows farmers to create an account, enter information about their farm, and register their farm for consumers to see. Meanwhile, consumers can create accounts, search for farms, get information about local farms, and see posts made my local farms. How we built it: - We implemented the backend in NodeJS and the frontend with React, using Express and Axios to help us with our apis. Challenges we ran into: - Our team consisted of two in-person hackers and two virtual hackers, which made communication somewhat difficult. On top of that, one of the group members was sick for the majority of the weekend (not in-person, don't worry) and was unable to write much code. With frequent Discord voice calls, we were still able to overcome these issues and communicate effectively. Aside from that, our experience levels varied with certain technologies, leading to some slow-downs as we all worked together to produce our project. However, this difference in experience helped the hackathon be an even better learning experience for all of us! Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are very proud of how the application came together in the end. With fast-paced projects consisting of several group members, it can often be quite difficult to envision how all the moving pieces will fit together to form the finished product. However, we persisted and, working together the whole way, were able to bring all the pieces together into a website. What we learned: - Each of us learned more about the tech stack that we were working in and we gained more valuable experience with these technologies. Perhaps more importantly, we also learned how to work together as a unified team, despite not all being together in-person, to create a project that we could all be proud of. This feat took a lot of effort in communication and teamwork, which are incredibly important skills. What's next for Local Farm Connector: - In the nature of 36 hour hackathons, we were not able to implement everything that we wanted to. The main functionality that we couldn't quite finish was allowing farm accounts to actually post to their followers. Furthermore, we were really hoping to add a chat feature to the website so that potential consumers could reach out to local farmers with feedback or questions. Lastly, we also wanted to add a feature to allow users to offer to volunteer with the farms at certain available time blocks, which the farmers would be able to set. These functions would allow the Local Farm Connector to reach its true potential in connecting local, sustainable farms with consumers. If we were to continue with the project beyond that, we would add features to allow users to purchase produce from farms through our website, either for pickup or delivery. This feature would greatly help local farmers compete with large grocery chains. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/project-p

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: The Future of Patter: - As it is currently, integrates with NCR APIs and has plans to integrate with other providing software in order to make Patter a place where businesses can rely on it as a single source of truth for much of their day-to-day. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/solar-ai

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - As we transition more and more to renewables the most common among customers is solar power. The traditional solar system involves solar panels charging batteries and the home using the batteries for its power. The issue with this is that you lose about 30-40% of efficiency from charging the batteries due to the hardware needed and heat. We wanted to create a way to fix this. Our solution uses machine learning to forecast the power output from the solar panels then we can decide if we want to use the batteries or direct solar power. This will allow for increased efficiency by cutting out the use of batteries. The user can set a threshold based on their needs. - If you were to connect solar to your house without batteries there will be no power at night or during very cloudy days. Why not create a system that knows when to switch between the two sources? What it does: - We predict the output from a solar power system 10 minutes in the future. If this prediction is below a set threshold then the system will switch to battery power. This softens the transition between the two power sources because we know when we want to switch before we have to switch. How we built it: - We got weather and PV output data as well as pictures of the sky using a full sky camera. This camera is very important to the system. It allows us to observe cloud movement and weather. These are factors that impact the output of a solar panel. We did use 4 lag variables to show the regression model what the previous output was. For data gathering, we will be using a raspberry pi and Arduino Mega with sensors to capture our weather data. - hardware specifics Challenges we ran into: - The biggest problem that we had was how big our dataset was. Due to the size of the dataset, we could not load it all into our computers at once. We needed to purge memory space in order to process all of our data. Also, we reduced the size of the images and reduced them to black and white to further assist with this issue. We were unable to use all of the data from the images so we opted to get the first 10 principal components. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud that we got an accuracy of 91% for predictions 10 minutes into the future using the image data and weather data. What we learned: - We learned how to deal with large datasets that are not on distributed file systems. Using something like pyspark would have helped greatly with the memory issue. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/hangman-dmoiz6

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We knew from the beginning we wanted to code a game, so we immediately focused on potential games we would be interested in trying to imitate while also adding a little twist of our own. Due to the popularity yet simplicity of the game Hangman, we decided it would be immensely interesting and rewarding to see how creative we could get with our rendition of Hangman. What it does: - This game is a very simple rendition of the popular Hangman game, with extra designs here and there from us to make it more interesting. How we built it: - We built this game using Java and JavaFX in the Eclipse IDE. Challenges we ran into: - Our biggest challenge was the time limit for this project. Since we decided on implementing JavaFX within our project, a language none of us were very familiar with, we had to figure out how to learn the concepts and code our game within the deadline. In addition, we also faced issues when first choosing which IDE to code in. We tried out multiple platforms such as Intellij and MobaXterm, before finally settling on Eclipse, as it was the easiest for us to grasp coding in JavaFX. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We're proud of creating a UI that's pretty similar to the design we had in mind. We're also proud of learning enough JavaFX within the past ~36 hours to create our own version of Hangman that still carries many of the same implementations as the regular Hangman. What we learned: - We learned how to implement JavaFX in ways we've never done before. We also learned how to use many of the functionalities within Eclipse that make coding and debugging much more efficient. What's next for Hangman: - The next steps are for us to utilize what we've gained from this project to further develop and complete the game. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/4c-mu954f

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Here at 4C, we recognize the amount of concern involved when businesses decide to expand into a retail location. We aid these businesses to determine the best open regions to expand to new locations. What it does: - Our product predicts foot traffic for each candidate location, which serves as a proxy for a successful prospective store location. Therefore by obtaining the foot traffic of different regions, 4C allows companies to foresee which regions would be most successful. How we built it: - We used a Machine Learning based approach to construct a model that takes in nearby competitors, income level of the county, population of the county, and satellite images of the area as the input features. It returns the foot traffic of the location as detailed above. Meanwhile, on the dashboard, companies can scout potential locations via latitude and longitude coordinates. The dashboard recommends certain latitude and longitude coordinates based on the output of the model. - This was powered by NCR's Sites API, which has a Find Nearby request that we used to get nearby locations to the one that a retail business would enter. What's next for 4C: - We would like to improve the features and the accuracy of the model to give companies that use our product even better results. We would also like to aggregate more data so that our model is more accurate. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/cheers-n-m

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - The project is Cheers N.M. for every person who have a smartphone to know the live information about a night market event. The key inspiration for this project is from a video on Bilibili which is about a vlogger’s night market experience. I found out that there was currently no queuing time displayed in the night market, though queuing to buy things in the night market was a very common thing. The man in the video had difficulty in choosing, and he hesitated to line up to buy delicious food. My team then decided to build a project to help people who always hesitates to line up waiting for some good stuffs. What it does: - Our projects are presented in the form of web pages. The users will be able to see at a glance which merchant is the most popular. For the users who want to find the line waiting information of a specific merchant, we have an alphabetic list of all the merchants on the left of the webpage. When the users click or move the mouse onto a merchant’s name, it will show the approximate waiting time and the last update time. The most important feature is that we provide a channel for uploading photos, so that users can know the approximate time they need to queue after uploading a picture of the number of people in the queue in front. In this way, it is convenient for users to make better choices about whether to continue queuing. How we built it: - We use Javascript, jQuery, D3, intro.js and AnyChart as our front-end techniques. For the back-end platform, we chose Django to take the responsibility since it’s Python-based. The key technique of transforming a photo to the number of people lining up is computer vision, which uses machine learning to achieve the goal. The neural network that trains the dataset to detect the number of people in a photo is CSRNet (Dilated Convolutional Neural Networks for Understanding the Highly Congested Scenes) from a paper written by Yuhong Li .etc. from UIUC and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. We then implemented a simple algorithm to convert the number of people waiting in line to the approximate remaining time for waiting. Challenges we ran into: - The major challenge we encountered was to generate the CSRNet paper’s model to work properly and as precisely as possible for our web. Although we have not made the prediction of the number of people in a image very precisely yet, we should master the technique of using the CSR neural network over time. Plus, due to the limited time, the whole functionalities are only available on web but not on phone. We are confident to implement the unachieved functionalities on smartphones in the future. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We used word cloud in our UI design. What we learned: - Though three of my team are CS majored students and one is ECE majored students. We still had a hard time to convert ideas into NO-BUG code through various methods. We have looked through towns of tutorials. All of us have learnt something brand new. We also learned that we never really realize how much we are capable of doing until we give it a shot. What's next for Cheers N.M.: - Next, we will continue to optimize and perfect our project. Apply all functions to smartphones. At the same time, we will also work hard to improve the accuracy of queuing people identification. If it works well, it may cooperate with the night market organizer. Stay tuned for more features! First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/cdry

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Our team is CDRY, and our app is the answer to the currently oversaturated e-commerce marketplace. Companies across the world have done everything there is to do with selling their products online. Now, Companies and consumers can level up their sales and purchases with, you guessed it, NFTs! What it does: - Using the NCR Business Service Platform, we created a highly scalable e-commerce site with customer and catalog API’s to handle user and product data within the cloud. With our minimalist UI, customers can easily add NFT investing into their daily routine and get experienced in the next generation of cryptocurrency. How we built it: - We used React to build the frontend, and Flask as well as GoLang to build the backend. Additionally, we also made use of the NCR API and deployed the backend on GCP. We built the app to be very flexible and easily hostable! Challenges we ran into: - We kept running into server errors due to the formatting of the API response data. Additionally, implementing ethereum to make use of the MetaMask extension proved to be quite challenging. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Being able to use the NCR API was a hurdle that we got over and were able to integrate into our application after quite a while!\nBeing able to create NFTs, allowing users to use a MetaMask wallet, and confirming transactions on the blockchain were huge tasks that needed to be tackled! But we persevered and our custom API on the GCP was a successful endpoint.\nCreating a minimalist yet pretty UI was also a challenge, but something we were able to overcome! What we learned: - Many of us were new to the blockchain and NFTs, but this project was an eye-opener to these up-and-coming technologies. From creating our own NFTs to securing transactions on the blockchain, there were many things to be learned.\nAdditionally, we learned about the uses of NCR's APIs and how effective a BSP API can be in a business application. What's next for CDRY: - There are so many features that we were thinking of adding to this project but did not have the time for! For example, using NCR BSP API (specifically the Orders API), we were planning on trackers orders and displaying NFT transactions on the website, creating an even more dynamic and interesting e-commerce web application. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/buzzsense

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Like most new implementations on campus this semester, BuzzSense was designed as a response to the coronavirus. With the resurgence of in-person students on campus, it’s harder than ever to maintain proper social distancing in our shared spaces. Specifically, one of BuzzSense’s largest goals was to aid immunocompromised individuals and those with restrictions on mobility in their access to covid-safe areas. Another possible application would be toward sustainability. If there are less people in an area, lights/HVAC can be altered. Overall, we wanted an easy way to check the occupancy levels of the areas we frequently visit. - ...Plus, many of us students know all about the frustrating experience of looking through the 18 combined floors of Clough Commons, Price Gilbert Library, and Crosland Tower to find an open study spot. What it does: - BuzzSense determines the occupancy levels of different public buildings on campus and their floors using the number of active devices connected to various access points (which correlate with the location in the building). Our program compares the number of currently active devices with prior data to see if occupancy is above or below average. - Users can visit the BuzzSense website and select a building and floor to see a graphical representation of the floor’s location in the building and find the occupancy of the floor. Right now, our three levels of occupancy are “LOW”, “MEDIUM”, and “HIGH”. \n “MEDIUM” corresponds to the average occupancy of the building (~average number of active devices) \n “LOW” and “HIGH” correspond to below average occupancy and above average occupancy respectively - Note: We collected connection data from GTOther and also manually added some mock connection data in order to demo our product. In practice, our product would collect data from a more widely-used network and no mock data would be used. How we built it: - The website was built with HTML/CSS and JavaScript. The back-end was built with Node.js using Express and MongoDB. Wireless connection data was obtained using tcpdump. - Hardware we used: Raspberry Pi and host computer. Challenges we ran into: - We tested and researched four different methods to find building occupancy (e.g. Bluetooth LE). However, we eventually realized that many of them weren’t feasible in terms of both hardware and software. - Also, lots and lots of bugs and roadblocks with CSS and Node.js. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - \nOur usage of access points to determine occupancy\nThe potential viability of our prototype to solve campus-wide (and beyond) issues \nOur perseverance through unruly bugs \n What we learned: - \nMaking network-based applications can be really hard\nDetails about Bootstrap & Linux \n What's next for BuzzSense: - The BuzzSense demo interface includes some of the busiest buildings on campus: Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons, Price Gilbert Memorial Library, and Crosland Tower. We hope to expand both the interface and coverage to more buildings and areas. - Other goals: - \nBuzzSense mobile app \nUI improvement \n More technical details and technical goals found on our GitHub page.: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/minecart

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - We realized, often enough, people do not have enough of an incentive to come back and shop at the same shop, especially because they just do not like the entire shopping experience. They just come back for their needs. To transform this shopping experience, we have devised a way to reward and gratify customers for each purchase they make so that they come back more frequently. What it does: - MineCart is a plugin that can be added to any current Minecraft server and allows players to complete in-game challenges in order to earn rewards that can be applied to retail purchases. Players are incentivized both to play Minecraft and to engage with the partnered retailer in order to make use of the rewards they accumulate as they play. How we built it: - We used Spigot as a framework for the Minecraft plugin, which defines the challenges players can complete for rewards and provides in-game progress tracking. The plugin, written in Java, also communicates with our MySQL database, which is hosted on AWS RDS, using it to store player information as they join the server and select and complete challenges. On the web side, we built an application in React.js backed by Node.js that handles communication with the database. The app displays player progress in their selected challenges as well as the rewards they have accumulated. Players are also able to redeem rewards for completed challenges and apply those rewards for discounts on purchases on the app. Challenges we ran into: - Due to the variety of languages and frameworks utilized, we ran into several challenges over the course of developing MineCart. On the plugin side, learning how to establish and manage database connections within Spigot presented a challenge as we began the project. Additionally, juggling the smorgasbord of dependencies in Spigot and especially in React needed to maintain connection between all parts of the project but also just to implement all desired functionality was a continuous source of challenges throughout the course of this project. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud that we generally accomplished what we sent out to accomplish. The various parts of the project were all able to work together in unison, the plugin providing updates as the player made choices and completed challenges, and the back and front ends of the web application were able to access those updates via the database and use them to display information and provide functionality to users. What we learned: - MineCraft plugins were a generally new world to everyone on the team, but, since we have all been fans of the game in some capacity over the course of our lives, we were excited to learn how they are developed and how they might have applications in other spaces like retail. We all also had a chance to brush up on our web development by solving the various puzzles that came up over the course of building the React application. What's next for MineCart: - The web application is intended to serve as a proof of concept for as to how MineCart could be integrated with real retail sites in order to draw traffic and encourage engagement from Minecraft players. In the future, MineCart could partner with retail sites to provide promotions to users in order to foster a relationship both between Minecraft players and retailers as well as between retailers and large Minecraft servers, who could directly integrate the plugin and allow their substantial player-bases the opportunity to earn rewards as they play. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/retail-rewards-bidding

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: How it's made: - We created a RESTful API server using Flask and SQLite. This server keeps track of all of the users in the points economy, creates new auctions as old ones close, and even allows users to add points from QR codes printed on their receipts! This latter functionality is enabled by NCR's Business Services Platform APIs. QR codes can be generated to contain a specific transaction ID, and the server uses the ID to retrieve the transaction's information to calculate how many points to give to the user. Additionally, passwords are encrypted, and sessions are tracked with encrypted JSON Web Tokens. - The client app is created with Android Studio using Retrofit2 as the primary API handling library. UI design is not our strong suit, but that's not a problem. We mostly wanted a usable face to put on top of our Flask API. Challenges we ran into: - A lot of the challenges we encountered stemmed from our general lack of experience with creating and handling APIs and Android apps. We spent a lot of time just figuring out how to synchronize the protocols between the client, server, and database. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/broke-besties

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - While brainstorming what to implement for our project, we pulled inspiration from both the NCR APIs and our own experiences, figuring out how problems we've dealt with on a a day to day basis could be addressed with certain APIs. In this process, we identified how difficult it is to be financially literate and responsible and hoped to create something that assisted individuals in being so. What it does: - Specifically speaking, Broke Besties is a web app that helps users manage their spendings given a certain budget said user would have inputted in the registration process. It aims to visualize and organize user spending, so users, themselves, can see where it is they spend the majority of their money, where they can hold back spending, and when it's necessary to spend versus splurge. There are two main functions to Broke Besties, the first of which utilizes the NCR cheque scanning API to scan and analyze receipts for the amount spent at a given institution. The second function is the actual visualization of the data. Essentially, the user has to register to use the web app, so their registration data gets saved with how much money they spent, where they spent it, and an overarching tag to classify it under. All of this information is showcased through a table that actively updates itself. How we built it: - We split into two teams, one for the front end, using HTML and CSS, and one for the back end, using Python and PHP. The front end team, went in first and designed the basic HTML skeleton, so that the backend team could populate it with data as necessary. While that happened, the backend team started figuring out how to implement the API and collect and store the data. Challenges we ran into: - We ran into quite a few challenges, some of which inhibited the full ability of our product. These included not being able to do full OCR integration with JS, further budget and save features (calendars overlays, goal deviations, etc), implement a point reference system, and the launch a full app. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - However, we're proud we managed to implement the OCR, add user registration and login, add saving goals, and add expense tags . What we learned: - In this entire process we learned the importance of being able to work together well while maintaining our focus on developing a minimum viable product as opposed to losing focus on a host of smaller features. What's next for Broke Besties: - Next, we plan on addressing all the issues we ran into during the hackathon, implement a budget feature, and make it a mobile app. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/munch-bo0x6m

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - As college students ourselves, we often do not have time to cook the most nutritious meals. We either starve ourselves or go for an unhealthy fast food option. We realize that it is impossible to get rid of fast foods altogether in our lifestyle, but why not make healthier choices? And just like that, munch was born. What it does: - The munch app allows users to find food items in their general vicinity that best aligns with their health goals. Based off the user's location, and dietary restrictions, the app looks through its firebase database and recommends the best meal for the user. To create a loyal customer base, we created a rewards program that allows users to spin for a coupon to save some money on future purchases. How we built it: - We queried basic nutritional information for the menu items of the restaurants that are found in Atlanta. We then sent this information to a firebase, which we then displayed to the user using a swift UI app. Challenges we ran into: - Our API of choice only allowed us to call an API 50 times before we had to grab a new key, so we had to get creative and generate a set of API keys and app ids to get the information for our menu items. Unfortunately, we were not able to finish the functional aspect of the program as much as we wanted to, and we were just a couple of hours short of finishing the UI. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are proud of how aesthetically pleasing our user interface looks. The user interface uses graphics that are simple, clean, and easy to understand with a glance. What we learned: - We have never worked with APIs in great detail before, and learning to interact with the nutritionix API was a great teaching moment. We also learned how to work with the firebase architecture and how useful cloud-based servers truly are. What's next for munch: - We are planning on developing and finishing this app after the hackathon, adding more dimensions that a user can search using. One ambitious goal that we have is to be able to simplify the user interface into a search bar that accepts a couple of sentences that outlines what sort of food the user is looking for. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/autospot-pktwj7

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Almost everyone in the world has a car but not many people know how their car works. This website is for people who need information or general car maintenance advice for their vehicle. What it does: - This website gives people basic information on their car based on the car make and model. It gives basic maintenance and repair advice based on what area you are having issues with. How we built it: - We used HTML and CSS on Visual Code Challenges we ran into: - We learned HTML and CSS this weekend Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Finishing the website What we learned: - HTML and CSS What's next for Autospot: - We want to finish the website in the future First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/furnitureexp-vr

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - How can one reduce their carbon footprint in furniture shopping, while social distancing, but still get a 'feel' for what furniture they are buying? What it does: - A VR living room that uses 3D models from Wayfair's website to interact with, see pricing info, as well as suggest which furniture items to consider next given current furniture selection. How we built it: - Utilized Unity's engine for creating the VR space, mid-end interfaces with javascript, utilized Jupyter Notebooks for data collection and analysis. Challenges we ran into: - Having models correctly mesh, retrieving 3D models from Wayfair, web scraping congruous data. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - Making a working VR platform. What we learned: - It is best to first build with the minimum amount of features needed. What's next for FurnitureExp.VR: - Fleshing out the decision tree suggesting, importing more 3D models. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/crypto-curious

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Cryptocurrency has been in the conversation for multiple years now. While the conversation has been around, many times people are still left with many questions about the growth of cryptocurrency, current usage, and what its future. These are common questions that members of our group have had when conversing with their friends, peers and others. Additionally, many people are interested or potentially interested in investing, but are hesitant to invest because of a lack of knowledge about it. What it does: - We decided to create a web-based application that is focused on the education to inform about the past, present, and future of Crypto. Currently, on the front page, there are cards which are designed to show recent trends of the particular currency as well as general breakdown of the Coin's relevant information. Additionally, there is a quiz page where there will be information about important CryptoCurrency topics and corresponding quiz questions. Our goal of the quiz questions is for the user to be able to obtain CryptoCurrency that we made. How we built it: - We used React and React Native to put together our pages and used Meta Mask to make our Etherium based coins. Challenges we ran into: - One of the biggest issue we ran into was the compatibility of an Etherium boiler plate with React Native. We worked on various problem solving techniques to go about reaching a solution. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We worked as a team to accomplish the tasks in new frameworks. We were able to new learn new ideas and continously adapt to changes. We are proud of the final design that we were able to create. What we learned: - We learned a lot about React Native, Blockchain technologies, and Crytocurrency as a whole. What's next for Crypto Curious: - We want focus on more dynamic up to date content and additional user input features. We will continue to adapt and change with the growing market. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/sustainavestor

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - Our story with Sustainavestor began with a multitude of personal experiences. We knew we wanted to invest, but how can figure out how to do it sustainably? There is so much information out there, how do I know what applies to me? Given this time, we wanted to take this challenge head on and give both new and old investors a new tool to discover both what is important to them, and what companies share these values. What it does: - Sustainavestor is a web application that presents users with a quiz, and then computes customized results for each user. These results include both a personalized set of ESG values and a set of stocks that are from your quiz results. For each of these stocks, a percent relation is calculated and displayed such that you can know exactly how closely this firm shares your investing priorities. How we built it: - Sustainavestor is a full web application, with a python flask backend that uses a REST api to communicate with a front end system. We also used Python data analytics to combine information from both a S&P 500 dataset and Wikipedia to look into the top companies and how their values relate to your own. Challenges we ran into: - With a big goal comes a good few challenges. First, we ran into issues in how we wanted to run compose the project. We were also unsure in what data was both reliable and gave us the most information. We were also concerned with making sure that are quiz was as useful as possible, without having the user take an exceptionally long quiz. This combined with other issues that come along with making a full stack web application made this a rewarding challenge to overcome. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We are incredibly proud of the application we were able to create and the data analytics that underlie it. What we learned: - We learned a lot about how we can learn more about investing and create software that educates others in the space. With software like this and others, we believe strongly in a vision that all investors can learn how they can invest sustainably, and feel comfortable that their resources are being used for good. What's next for Sustainavestor: - In the future, we hope to expand the underlying data analytics am make Sustainavestor an even more versatile product for users in the future. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/payflow

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - A few days ago, a couple of friends and I spent 20 minutes trying to order at a restaurant. Most of the time was spent discussing which order each person would pay. What we ended up doing was having my friend Nabeel pay the whole amount while the rest of us venmo'd him regarding the items that we order. Nabeel had to pay the full $75 dollars for our order just so that we could claim each individual dish we bought. Having gone through this process, we decided to create Payflow that would allow consumers in grocery lines shopping together to split the final bill seen on the cashier. What it does: - Unlike the restaurant experience, pay flow would allow consumers to join a web server containing the items in the cart, select each item according to each consumer, calculate the total cost for each consumer, and most importantly directly pay the merchant through the NCR Orders API. How we built it: Challenges we ran into: Accomplishments that we're proud of: What we learned: What's next for Payflow: First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]

https://devpost.com/software/groder

Please evaluate the following project description based on two criteria on a 10-point scale: Novelty and Usefulness. Novelty: How unique and original is the project's concept, approach, or solution? Does it introduce new ideas, methods, or perspectives that are significantly different from existing ones? Usefulness: How practical and appropriate is the project in addressing the problem, situation, or challenge it targets? Does it effectively solve a real-world issue or meet a specific need? Project Description: Inspiration: - After interacting with various food and grocery delivery apps, we realized the inflationary prices for specific goods and the underlying service and delivery fees that lead to price markups. Delivery expenses add up; from small, annoying service fees on household items to inflated prices due to huge markups. Delivery systems like Uber eats and InstaCart exacerbate the problem, crowding the market with too many platforms that compete to squeeze profit dollars using a large infrastructure and similar network. We wanted to create a system that could both benefit both the consumer and the producer and came up with groder, an app that brings neighbors together by the means of commerce in a feasible manner. What it does: - groder itself has functionalities that enable a consumer to search for a desired store or location and see what shoppers are currently at the store or when they are planning to be at the store along with their distance away from the consumer. On the shoppers end, the shopper could ideally post a notification to his/her network and make create a shopping group. The home page directs to a general network of shoppers or groders that are near to you. From there you can sort by location or by name and see the details of the shopper such as their score/rating and previous trips (date, time, location etc.). The consumer can then join the shoppers group and add items to buy along with the price range they are willing to pay. How we built it: - We created the login and authentication infrastructure using Firebase and coded the entire app in Flutter using Dart. We prototyped and templated all the screens in Figma before we started coding. We also implemented a sorting search algorithm to filter/prioritize shoppers based on nearest location to the consumer or user. Challenges we ran into: - An initial challenge included coming up with an idea that we deemed worth investing time in. After we came up with groder, the main obstacles we ran into was familiarity with all of the technologies used. The login infrastructure experienced a few bugs but eventually panned out and became a fully fledged login system. Coding the app itself was pretty challenging albeit fun to collaborate with other team members and create a functioning MVP. Accomplishments that we're proud of: - We were proud that we were able to create a working prototype and appealing UI/UX design of the app. Also our searching algorithm was custom made and it was really cool to see its implementation in a project such as this. Lastly, we were happy to get the Firebase infrastructure working as we could host the login and authentication systems on cloud. What we learned: - We learned that it's necessary to plan out and design an application before jumping straight into the code. Also, all of us learned the importance of project management techniques, whether it be delegating tasks and dividing components of the app between us. What's next for groder: - From a technical standpoint, we hope to find and connect to an API that can get price and item data to optimize search methods for consumers. Also, we would love to create a post notification system using FCM(firebase cloud messaging). At a high level, we believe groder fills the gap between delivery and community, presenting a unique opportunity to fuse the two, creating a platform that enables customers to get their goods and potentially form lasting relationships with their deliverers. First, provide your answers in the following format: Novelty: [score], Usefulness: [score] After providing the scores, include your rationale in a separate section: Rationale: [text]