Go-Pool: A Carpool Connection App

Purpose

Go-Pool is an application designed for parents to connect with other parents whose children attend the same school. Parents are able to create an account using a school-provided access code. Once they have an account, they are able to arrange carpools to school events through a message board system.

About this project

what it does
why chosen tech was used
challenges faced and features hope to add

Getting Started

This application requires:

a connection to a SQL database (we used ElephantSQL)
a connection to a NoSQL database (we used MongoDB)
a Google Maps API key (sign up free by following the Google Maps documentation)

Install the dependencies and start the server

npm install

To launch the program in production mode:

npm run start

To launch the program in development mode:

npm run dev

Add a .env file with the following info:

PG_Username = ...
PG_Password = ...
API_KEY = ...

PG_Username and Password are used in userModel.js to connect to your database. Enter your username and password strings in the .env file.
API_KEY should be set equal to your Google API Key and is used in the userInfo.jsx component to access the Google Maps API in order to display a user's location.

Features

Sign-up page to create an account
Log-in page to access your account
User Dashboard that displays upcoming event threads, a calendar of event threads, and a form for creating a new thread for an event.
When you click on an event thread, you can view messages that have been posted about the event. You can also reply to existing messages here.
Direct Messages (in progress): send and receive private messages to other users
User Info: Click on a person's name to send them a message or see their location.

Tech

Go-Pool uses a number of open source projects to work properly: