Team Spring Samurais Present Toy Swappresent
Toy Swap Demo Video
Rehoming all those forgotten and neglected toys and gifts
120 million toys are forgotten and unused each year, often buried at the bottom of toy boxes, stuck in the attic or simply thrown away. Toy Swap helps users to list and donate/swap their unneeded toys and reduce clutter and waste. Users can register, add/update/delete listings, and comment on their favourite listings. The listing owner can then read the comments and select their favourite comment, and exchange details for a donation or swap.
The Team
Sam Kettle
Angel Schmalbach
Mohammed Moazam
Nadarajah Ainkharan
Bilal Musa
Technologies
We Used: Kotlin, Java, Spring, Amazon Web Services, PostgreSQL, Glide, Google Maps, Android
We used Java and Spring for our back-end given their popularity and robustness. For the front-end, we wanted a new challenge and as Kotlin is the recommended language for Android development, we took this challenge head-on. We used AWS for its vast choice of services and scalability, and PostgreSQL for a relational database that integrates well with these Amazon services. Glide made image rendering with Android seamless, and Google Maps integrated perfectly with the Android ecosystem and created great-looking maps to polish the UI. Developing in the Java ecosystem consolidated all our bootcamp skills and gave us a springboard for new technologies we hadn't covered.
Challenges Faced
Taking on a new language (Kotlin) on the front-end with a two-week deadline was challenging, but it really helped us learn more about Java by using it. We had some very complex database relationships that managed users, listing, comments and images - so we had to plan well to make these entities work properly together. We worked well as a team with strong planning which helped a lot as things came together.