Manoa Tunes

I think the most ironic part about this project was that we made it during a pandemic, but maybe this was just the light at the end of the tunnel. The process of coming up with this project came pretty smoothly; each member of the group had some connection to music already, whether it was having played an instrument before, or a contant exposure to various genres of music. As a team, we came across the idea of creating a hub for people to talk about that, which became Manoa Tunes. Manoa Tunes is intended to be a site where users are able to meet other music enthusiasts both online and in-person. Users are able to create a profile and share a little bit about themselves, from their musical interests to the instruments they play. More ambitious users can also create what we call a “Jam” which is essentially an in-person gathering centered around a love for music. Users are able to join and leave Jams as they please.

We divided up tasks for the project in a way that played to everyone’s strengths. Personally, I have an affinity for organization and thinking of hypotheticals, so it was natural that my contributions included creating the database, scheduling meetings, and testing the site, among other things. There were sessions where we clocked in extra hours thinking about what might cause a bug to appear, and how we can go about preventing said bug to occur again. One of the largest issues we had was when we started implementing the ability to create a Jam. Every time a Jam was created, the website would crash. Once that got fixed, anyone who joined a Jam who crash the site again. Eventually, we compared creating a Jam to creating a profile, and were able to trace some issues with an inconsistent data transfer.

As this was the final project for my software engineering course, this put me to the test on anything I may have learned throughout the semester. It kept me thinking, “if this does not work, what if we try this instead?” I think ultimately, the project has helped me immensely in communicating with others, as well as seeing the transformation of code to product and vice versa. Looking forward, I want to further enhance my ability to contribute in a team environment, as well as gain a better understanding in the code I write.

For more information about Manoa Tunes, you can check out the site here, take a gander at our code, or explore our project page.