Overview
GopherMatch was created to solve a problem that was plaguing UMN: incompatible roommates. The current system the university offers is both inadequate and frustrating to use. Students get no say in picking potential roommates and have to rely on the university choosing for them based on the answers to their shallow questions.
We aim to create a "Tinder-like" website that allows UMN students to use their UMN emails to create accounts on our platform, where they can browse through other people's profiles and see who they would like as a roommate. If both people "swipe" on each other, then they get matched and can contact each other on their choice of social media.
Technologies
We used the MERN stack as we wanted to use a very standard & efficient stack to build our site. Instead of the traditional MongoDB, we went with SQL solely for the sake of learning SQL.
- MySQL
- Express
- React
- Node
- Azure (free $150 student credit)
Updates
We very recently started using Tailwind to make our CSS work faster and simpler. We also started using Figma to help design our components before implementation, which is a drastic improvement to our 'design as we code' workflow from before.
At the beginning, the idea for the site was to be for students trying to find a roommate for the university dorms, but we realized that having an apartment roommate feature would be much more useful. So now, we're currently developing the ability for users to find a roommate for an apartment, dorms, or both.
The logo for the application.
Future
We're still cooking, but we plan to launch the site in May 2024.