Inspiration
ReKindle was birthed from an intensive brainstorming session earlier on in the Hackathon - it was one of those ideas that just came out of no where.
What it does
ReKindle is envisioned to be a “Social entertainment application for Facebook users to rediscover past relations in a fun and engaging way.” Here's the link to the beta. Email Himesh at himesh.patel@live.ca to request for access! link
How we built it
The application is web-based, so we mainly used html, css and javascript. Facebook-graph is used to randomly select a photo from the user's profile. The img url is then passed into our gamification script which jumbles the image into a 3x3 puzzle. Upon completion, we use another call to facebook graph to retrieve the "lost friend's" profile information.
Challenges we ran into
One of the biggest challenges we ran into was integrating the technologies to make the app complete. The gamification scripts were initially incompatible with the non-game parts of the site because it would try to read the mouse co-ordinates even when it was off the puzzle grid.
We also had to make a major pivot in the middle of competition when we discovered that facebook's API does not enable access to users friends list anymore. The "randomization process we had invisioned was quite different from what we ended up implementing, although it did accomplish our goal at the end of the day. We intended on selecting a random friendship as the photo source, to make the "rediscovery experience" more meaningful and unique to one friend. However, to meet ends we had to redesign the randomization process to funnel down from the content that was generated from the user. It would randomly select an uploaded album and then select a random picture from that album.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Having a working prototype was quite exciting as this was a first hackathon experience for everyone.
What we learned
We learned how to go from idea to a working prototype within a short time constraint.
What's next for Rekindle
We have many features that we want to add including:
- a cryptogram puzzle that jumbles old wall posts
- a better user interface
- comparative response game that shows you an excerpt from an old conversation and prompts you for a "response." After you submit, it will reveal how you actually responded to the prompt back then.
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