DormDeal 🎓

College is expensive, but campus life doesn't have to be. DormDeal is the app where students buy, sell, borrow, and help each other, making everyday college life more affordable.

Summary 📋

DormDeal is a mobile marketplace built exclusively for college students, verified through Microsoft Outlook .edu sign-in. Students can buy and sell textbooks, furniture, dorm supplies, and electronics within a trusted campus community. Unlike Facebook Marketplace or OfferUp, every user is a verified student, creating a baseline of trust only DormDeal offers.

DormDeal also supports ride-sharing to grocery stores and airports, service listings (tutoring, tech help, moving), item borrowing, and an event posting feature — making it a full campus peer-to-peer experience rather than a single-use marketplace.

MVP 🏆

• .edu verification
  • Probably won't be able to get student verification w/o getting Microsoft App approval, so focus here is to get Outlook sign-in through Microsoft Graph
• Buy & sell listings
  • Heavily inspired by Facebook Marketplace structure
• Rideshare
  • Carpools to grocery stores, airports, off-campus events
• In-app chat
• Trust score for users across all exchange types
• Services marketplace
  • Tutoring, tech help, moving, etc.
• Event posting feature

Stretch Goals 💪

• Public meetup suggestions
• Borrowing items
• CV item classification
  • Auto-detect category and condition from a photo
• Price recommendation engine
• Organization accounts

Timeline 📆

Week 1: Set Up ⚙️

All

• Decide focus features, brainstorm ideas
• GitHub practice & branches made

Front End

• Decide app flow
• Figma wireframing

Back End

• Research backend stack
• Design schema
• Figma wireframing
  

Week 2: More Preparation 💡

Front End

• Finalize wireframes for all screens
• Finalize color palette and logo design

Back End

• Microsoft Graph OAuth setup
• API research implementation
  

Week 3: Coding Begins 👨🏻‍💻

Front End

• Signup/Login screens
• "Connecting account…" screen
• Home feed skeleton UI

Back End

• Fetch and store user profile
• Initialize PostgreSQL schema
  

Week 4: Listings 📸

Front End

• Listing creation screen (photo, category, condition, price)
• Tag badges for listing type

Back End

• Photo upload
• Listing write to database
• Category and condition tagging logic
  

Week 5: Browse & Ride 🚗

Front End

• Browse/search listings UI
• Listing detail screen
• Ride post UI

Back End

• Browse and search API
• Rideshare listing logic
• Trust score foundation
  

Week 6: Chat & Services 💬

Front End

• In-app chat UI
• Services marketplace screen
• Event posting screen

Back End

• WebSocket chat backend
• Services listing logic
• Event post API
• Set up demo account
  

Week 7: Finishing Touches 👔

All

• Watch previous ACM presentations for inspo
• Begin brainstorming presentation script

Front End

• Loading states and polish
• Final feature touches
• Fix integration issues

Back End

• Last integrations
• Demo data (10+ listings, rides, services)
  

Week 8: Presentation Prep 🎤

All

• Full team run-through

Front End

• Presentation slides and script
• Assign speaking parts

Back End

• Finished video/demo recorded
• Last bug fixes
  

Week 9: Wrapping Up 🗣️🖥️

All

• Final slide edits
• Speaker transitions
• Q&A prep
  

MOCKS → THANKSGIVING BREAK → PRESENTATION NIGHT

Tech Stack & Resources 💻

Start here!

• Intro to Frontend
• Intro to Backend
• React Native docs
• Expo docs

Frontend

• Coolors
• Look at other UI for inspo
  • Mobbin
  • Dribbble
• Look at competitors!
• Intro to Design
• Sajid's Frontend Cheatsheet

Backend

• Designing a Database
• Node.js
• Swagger
• Microsoft Graph API docs

Environment Setup ♻️

• Install the latest version of Node.js.
• Clone the GitHub repository: acm-projects/DormDeal
• Use the following command to install any packages/dependencies necessary for running the project:

npm install

• Install Expo Go on iOS if testing on iOS.
• Create an Expo Account on Expo Go or on the official website, Expo. Remember this login information.
• Open the IDE of your choosing with the packages already installed and run the command to login (The example below is VSCode-tested):

npx expo login

Make sure to type the username/password properly in the terminal. If npx proceeds to ask for an Apple Developer Account login, skip it. (Prompting random, blatantly incorrect information is okay.)

• Use one of the following commands to test the project:

npm run android
npm run ios # you need to use macOS to build the iOS project - use the Expo app if you need to do iOS development without a Mac
npm run web

Or alternatively, you may use:

npx expo start

• If testing on web, a localhost should have already opened in your default browser.
• If testing on iOS:
  • Ensure that the WiFi connected on BOTH devices (Computer with the IDE, and mobile device) are exactly the same.
    • DO NOT USE any School WiFi (although Dorm (Dorm... Deal... 😆) WiFi is okay); as tested, it will not send a proper connection.
  • Ensure that on Expo Go, that you have logged in. An Apple Developer Account is not necessary.
  • use the Camera app to scan the QR code in the Terminal of your IDE which should redirect you to Expo Go.

Note: This project was built with the npx create-expo-app command.

Git Commands 🤖

Command	What it does
git branch	lists all the branches
git branch "branch name"	makes a new branch
git checkout "branch name"	switches to specified branch
git add .	finds all changed files
git commit -m "Testing123"	commit with a message
git push	push to branch
git pull "branch"	pull updates from a specific branch

Team DormDeal 😆

Developers

• Minh Do -> team member
• Sai Kottamasu -> aura
• Saloni Roy - fire
• Bhargavi Nigam --> your bestie

Project Manager

• Tramanh Trinh - goat

Industry Mentor

• Faiza Rahman