💡 Inspiration
Local artisans often face several challenges in their journey to sustain and grow their craft. Limited market access is one of the key obstacles they encounter. Due to a lack of visibility and resources, these talented individuals struggle to reach a wider audience and connect with potential customers beyond their immediate community.
By addressing these challenges, AR-tifacts aims to empower local artisans by providing them with a dedicated online platform to showcase their creations, reach a wider audience, and sell their products directly to customers. We believe that by bridging the gap between artisans and consumers, we can create a sustainable ecosystem that fosters the growth and prosperity of these talented individuals.
The inspiration for AR-tifacts stems from a deep appreciation for local businesses, community engagement, and cultural heritage. The project aims to promote economic sustainability, foster a sense of pride in local communities, and create an immersive experience that celebrates the uniqueness and diversity of each region. By leveraging technology and interactive features, AR-tifacts seeks to bridge the gap between traditional and modern approaches, enabling users to explore, support, and connect with the vibrant tapestry of local businesses and cultural treasures.
⚙️ What it does
AR-tifacts
Experience, Support, and Embrace Local Businesses through our distinctive blend of augmented reality, interactive maps, and event listings, we forge a connection between users and the diverse cultural legacy and dynamic offerings found within their local communities.
AR-tifacts is a unique online platform that celebrates local artistry and craftsmanship. With a wide range of artifacts sourced directly from vendors within your community, we aim to support and uplift local talent in this modern era. Our innovative augmented reality (AR) feature allows you to immerse yourself in the reality of these products, providing an interactive and authentic viewing experience.
Explore our website to discover a diverse collection of locally made goods, ranging from traditional crafts to contemporary designs. Through our intuitive map feature, you can locate local exhibitions and fairs where these vendors showcase their creations. By connecting directly with artisans through our vendor registration page, you can support them by purchasing their goods without any intermediaries, enabling them to earn a fair income for their craftsmanship.
Join us on AR-tifacts and become a part of the movement that promotes local entrepreneurship, preserves cultural heritage, and fosters economic growth within your community. Experience the pride of owning unique, locally crafted artifacts while making a positive impact on the lives of talented artisans.
🔧 How we built it
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We designed a website using HTML, CSS, Bootstrap and JavaScript for Frontend Developemnt and Node.js, Express-Multer for Backend connectivity.
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We used Google Maps API to customize the campus's map and pin the location that is useful for the users.
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We have used Mongo DB atlas for the our database connectivity for our vendor registration form. The connection string from MongoDB cluster is used in the server.js file to ensure connection.
Challenges we ran into 🙁
Brainstorming: Since the topic of augmented reality is popular, it takes our team a while to develop a website that is unique and had a real community impact.
Building: It is also a challenging Hackathon that we need to work in new areas which we were unfamiliar with, such as handling databases, making and customizing maps, and applying MongoDB for backend to the website to build a good project. Handling both backend and frontend at the same time within a weekend is also a big challenge for us.
Other: Members of the team are also at a different timezone, so we also need to come up with a schedule and responsibility that works for all timezone.
Accomplishments that we're proud of 😇
We take pride in our website as it serves as a valuable platform for local artisans. Join us on AR-tifacts and become a part of the movement that promotes local entrepreneurship, preserves cultural heritage, and fosters economic growth within your community. Experience the pride of owning unique, locally crafted artifacts while making a positive impact on the lives of talented artisans.
🚀 How we have used Github in our project? 🚀
We used Github in different ways:
Pull Requests and Issues: We created pull requests on our GitHub repository as we were a team of three and we're working on our local repository. If any of our team members gets an idea for a new feature, she would suggest it for all members to see and receive their opinions on how to implement it.
Github Branches Github branches helped a lot for beta testing of updated code before merging the new code into the original code. Our team approximately created 4-5 branches during the hackathon.
Github Pages we deployed our website at https://akshitagupta15june.github.io/AR-tifacts/ using Github pages. It was really simple to deploy our site through GitHub pages and we are planning to use this feature in future hackathons.
Github Templates We used the Github default LICENSE template for adding an MIT license to our project.
Github Actions Although implementing the actions was a kind of hectic task for our team but we tried to implement them for our pull requests. We still had to learn about GitHub's actions for future hackathons.
What we learned
During the project development process, we gained valuable experience in utilizing Bootstrap for enhancing the design and responsiveness of our website. Additionally, we successfully integrated Node and MongoDB Atlas for seamless backend data connectivity. Collaborative code sharing was made possible through GitHub, where we familiarized ourselves with branches, pull requests, and the importance of maintaining a comprehensive README file.
What's next for AR-tifacts
Our upcoming plans include enhancing connectivity between local artisans and customers through our platform. Artisans will have the opportunity to directly connect with people and showcase their products on our website. Additionally, we are dedicated to expanding our event listings, featuring a comprehensive range of exhibitions and fairs that local vendors can participate in.We also plan to let buyers buy products by adding payment gateway and further improve customer experience by shipping and tracking.