The problem PawTopia solves

A webapp for adopting stray pets solves the problem of stray animals being left without homes and families to care for them. Stray animals often face difficult living conditions and lack access to basic necessities such as food, shelter, and medical care. Additionally, these animals may pose a risk to the community if they are not properly cared for, leading to potential health and safety issues.

By providing a platform for individuals to browse and adopt stray pets, a website can help connect these animals with loving families who are willing and able to provide them with the care and attention they need. This can help reduce the number of stray animals on the streets and improve their overall welfare.

Furthermore, a website for adopting stray pets can also address the issue of animal overpopulation. Many stray animals are not spayed or neutered, leading to the birth of more litters of homeless pets. Through adoption programs, the website can promote responsible pet ownership, including spaying and neutering pets, which can help reduce the number of unwanted animals and promote more sustainable animal populations.

Overall,our website provides a valuable service by helping to solve the problem of animal homelessness and improving the welfare of these animals, while also promoting responsible pet ownership and reducing animal overpopulation.

Challenges we ran into

As a first-time offline hackathon participants, our team faced numerous problems due to our lack of experience.

One of our main concerns was time management. As hackathons are fast-paced events with strict deadlines, we were worried about how to manage our time effectively to ensure that we can complete my project on time. Luckily we had a very balanced team and we could put Rushil on design, Bilal on Frontend UI, Vinayaka on Backend, APIs and Frontend functionality.

Another challenge was our technical skills. We were aware that hackathons require a certain level of technical expertise, and we are aware that we may not have the skills to keep up with other participants. Especially the team next to ours was very intimidating and so we lost confidence whenever we were unable to implement a feature.

Collaboration was another concern of ours. While all 3 of us are used to working independently, contributing to a project simultaneously in real-time proved to be a challend. We overcame this by making calls whenver we were commiting, pushing, pulling or merging.

We also had a very bumpy start. Our intial plan was to create a Node/Express REST API for our backend and connect it with React on the Frontend. However due to being unable to implement secure authorization and restricting routes, we decided to go with Firebase Auth. After that we implemented our entire backend on Firebase and used Stripe API for payment gateway.

Towards the end of the hackathon, as we were low on sleep we weren't as productive and didn't have the same amount of concentration and starting making silly mistakes. Debugging these errors took a lot of time, when it could've been easily avoided.

Overall, we knew that participating in a hackathon for the first time will be challenging, but we were determined to learn new skills, meet new people, and have fun. Thanks to the organizing team of Dotslash 6.0, we had an enriching and wonderful experience for our first ever offline Hackathon.