Rider

One of our chat games
Avatar customization

Inspiration

As college students, we're no strangers to dating apps and what's popular. With Hinge being, by far, the most popular dating app in our demographic, we decided to imitate its style of portfolio and question-based matching. However, we wanted to make it less boring by including elements we know that help connect us with our friends, like Game Pigeon, a popular platform with a variety of games that get sent through iMessages. Taking inspiration, we used both this and a fun Wild West Theme to help engage users in a refreshing dating environment.

What it does

Rider helps connect different users looking to find love while also having a chance to show their fun side to their possible future partners. By putting their interests and personalities in the spotlight, users are able to connect with other "cowboys" like themselves and play chat-implemented games in order to learn more about each other.

How we built it

We used a brand new system, Flask, a micro web framework through a combination of python css/html, and Javascript in order to bring all of our users a friendly UI and easily bring the rough Wild-West to you.

Challenges we ran into

No one on our team has used Flask before, so there was a steep learning curve in the beginning. However, our combined knowledge on python and javascript allowed us to quickly grasp the basics of the framework and get into the groove of using Flask.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Early on, we had a member who was familiar with hackathons in the past and made major steps in the backend which helped set us up for success. However, by working together, we managed to put together our skillsets in order to create a fully functioning match-making in the early hours with original artwork and on-theme UI design. This especially shines through on our avatar customization in which users can create an unique avatar to display on their profile.

What we learned

We not only learned how to better work collaboratively with people we've never worked with before, but we also learned new ways to create both backend and frontend. We learned how to use flask to create a friendly front-end with original art, and also gained experience in javascript and css as we challenged ourselves with the UI elements of our web app.

What's next for Rider

In the future, we plan on implementing more personalization through our chat system and distance based matching for our users. We also plan on adding more portfolio parameters and preferences, such as age, location, and ethnicity. Additionally, we plan to add a personality test to the web app that not only gives users a fun wild-west personality, but also helps us find better matches for our users.