-
-
Home page
-
Generate invites
-
Event create page
-
Sign in page
Inspiration
We were inspired to create ProtestTools by rallies, protests, and events in both our local Lawrence community and the larger world. The modern, digital age has brought about various new resources and challenges people face when pushing for their voices to be heard. While online tools and social media have made it easier than ever to spread your message, a specific issue we both recognized was the increased importance of digital security not only during events but also during their planning. We wanted to create a tool that could aid with the safety, security, and ease-of-use of digital organization.
What it does
ProtestTools is a locally hosted event-organization web application. A user of the program creates their own instance of ProtestTools which can only be accessed by individuals possessing a valid generated link. Events can created with relevant info about the cause, date, location, time and also a marker on a map placed by the creator for further ease of communication. These events then appear on the home page for authenticated users. ProtestTools provides more control over who can see information during organization, creating safer and more productive community events.
How we built it
We used primarily Python and HTML in conjunction through flask. For this specific instance we also used MongoDB Atlas, but that easily be changed to a local instance of MongoDB.
Challenges we ran into
Both of our team members had little or no hackathon experience prior to this event so there was learning involved in every step. We ran into some issues getting data from folium back into Python, leading us to write some unexpected JavaScript. It was an interesting challenge to consider what best practices regarding security would be for our application.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Coming from little collaborative experience, we both had to learn a few things about how to best work with each other. Ultimately, we believe that we found a good balance and knew who was best suited for what task. The other was always willing to listen and bounce ideas off of.
Both of us were very practical about scope, and we firmly remained on the thin edge of possibility.
What we learned
In hindsight, more collaboration with one another could have done us some good. However, despite that we were able to finish what we had set out to do in the very beginning.
What's next for ProtestTools
Some features we would like to add and improve on are secure communication between users, increased authorization requirements, better configuration options for non-US locations, user groups, moderation, and improved privacy of user data.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.