TOHacks2021

A mobile app that allows nearby individuals to group online orders into one shipment to reduce their carbon footprint, split the cost of shipping, and save money through bulk purchasing.

Inspiration 🌈

• the carbon footprint of individually mailed packages from the packaging and environmental cost of individually transporting items
• the rise of eCommerce and online consumerism with the digital age and accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic
• living in proximity with many friends on a University campus with no platform to coordinate group purchases
• the undercover group purchases that happen on platforms like Reddit and WeChat with no platform formally and securely conduct these transactions
• our passion for trying to achieve free shipping status on our online purchases

What it does 🚢

• Allow users to join and create sessions based on non-urgent online shopping purchases to reduce their environmental footprint from ordering numerous smaller packages, potentially save some money through bulk purchases, and split the cost of shipping
• Home Page all of the users hosted sessions and sessions they have contributed to keeping track of their state
• Browse Page allows users to browse active sessions with their details and join sessions to contribute to
• Create Page allows users to create and host a new session filling out a form with the details of their new session
• Profile Page allows users to view the details of their profile

How we built it 📦

Backend

• Express server written using Nodejs that implements the Axios library to interact with our DataStax tables
• REST API endpoints for CRUD operations to interact with the database
• POST endpoint hits Courier API to send text message notifications on update using the Courier x Twilio integration

users table:

id: uuid,
name: text,
phone_number: text,
email: text,
address: text, 
pfp: text,
rating: int

active_sessions table

active_sessions
id: uuid,
deadline: text,
current_shipping_price: float,
current_cart_price: float,
num_people: int,
max_people: int,
emial: text,
users: list<uuid>,
items: list<list<text>>,
host: uuid,
state

(Also, a past_sessions table with the same columns as the active_sessions table)

active_sessions states and their meaning:

• collecting: open session and others are free to join
• pending: a new user joined the session and the prices/info is pending approval and update from the host of the session
• closed: no one else can join the session and waiting for the host to prompt for payments
• payments: host is collecting payments to hold in the application for all users who joined the session
• ordered: all payments have been collected and stored in the application and the host verifies that they have ordered the product
• pickup: items have arrived and the host indicates that they are ready for pickup

Frontend

• Cross-platform application written using Flutter
• Leverages Material UI theme for cohesive look
• State management and state passing using MobX
• Live and dynamic based on server side logic

Challenges we ran into 👊

• the learning curve associated with using Flutter, DataStax, and Courier for the first time
• collaborating virtually to complete the project by making good use of Git
• working on documentation to pass over backend config to help with integration frontend <> backend integration
• storing and preserving state in Flutter across pages
• creating custom queries to retrieve data in the backend: e.g. getting all contributors to a session who are not hosting
• setting up our environment to develop in Flutter in different operating systems 😅
• Android Studio emulators

Accomplishments that we're proud of 🏅

• successfully integrating DataStax into our application
• utilizing built-in Flutter components for a clean (relative to our past hackathon projects) UI
• maintaining backend documentation throughout the hackathon
• taking on a very large project for the hackathon and planning out a realistic POC to complete for the 24 hours of hacking
• compartmentalizing and delegating tasks to best make use of our individual skillsets
• successfully pair programming virtually using Live Share (not really an accomplishment but this was fun) 😀

What we learned 🤔

• how to manage and preserve state through Flutter components and pages
• how to make and interact with DataStax tables
• a lot of planning and initial prioritization of tasks to reflect on

What's next for Shipmates ⏭

warning: many ideas for this section - contribute some too 😊

• integrating with a service to allow for secure payment sending, holding in the application, and transfer upon state change in the application (we thought about using Stripe for this)
• refining user table related operations: allow the user to update fields in their profile
• adding a social aspect to the application: allow users to add friends, set sessions to private (only for friends to see)
• more filters on the browse page: by geographic location, by store, by type of store, and eventually providing recommendations based on past purchases
• incentivize hosts to create sessions: determining and creating a model for hosts to gain a bit of commission for efforts in hosting the sessions
• automating and integrating with eCommerce websites to import images and prices directly from URL's to avoid as much manual input of prices (another idea is to make a browser extension to automatically host sessions from )
• extending from mobile to also have a web application for ease of access
• allowing users to select what kind of notifications they would like to receive (email, push, text) and supporting them - also more custom messages based on state (adding the actionable in the notification e.g. ready for pickup)

Domain.com domain name idea: 💡

shipmates.tech