The Validation Project

A place to share your story, some advice, or just some kind words.

Validation Project Website

GitHub Repo Link

Devpost Link

Project Summary

This was a project that I created for Team Liquid's PrideMakers Event, a makeathon where members of the LGBTQIA+ community and allies can come together and collaborate on projects. This project is an online web application where people can share their story, some advice, or just kind words to one another.

Project Requirements

There were two themes to meet as part of this makeathon:

• Validation
• Self Expression

Project Thoughts

The purpose of the event was to build a project that achieved two main goal: validation and self expression. The first goal of this event was to create a project that made underrepresented groups feel included in tech and esports (validation). The other goal was to help others feel more comfortable expressing themselves (self-expression).

With those requirements in mind, I came up with a web app where users can post messages onto a public message board. With an overall vision of providing a space where members of underrepresented groups could share their own stories, some advice, or just some kind words.

In order to build this project, I made use of the Flask web framework which is a Python based frame work for building web apps. I also made use of Heroku as a database and hosting service.

This was my first time using both Flask and Heroku in my projects, so the biggest challenge that I faced was learning how to use both of these tools. But as a result I learned about two new tools and even brushed up on SQL database commands.

Pro tips on using Heroku:

1. a "Procfile" is required to run your program on Heroku. When creating the "Procfile" the "P" must be capitalized or else Heroku won't recognize it (took me a while to solve this simple issue).
2. Heroku makes use of dynamic ports, so your code should be written in a way that deals with interchangable ports (which is good practice in general).

This project was a quick mockup/prototype but in the future I want to turn this project into a space where everyone can share and form a community. However, I do need to implement some type of verification of user posts so that only positive posts are approved.