It is fairly common for students to lose their stuff while in campus. No matter it is their laptop, handphone, wallet, or even just a water bottle, they certainly want the item back.
The first thing that comes to their mind might be to physically travel to Student Service Centre at Yusof Ishak House to check if anyone has returned their items, but it could be very inconvenient and inefficient to do so. They might also choose to post on NUSWhispers Lost and Found section, yet fail to receive any replies, or have a difficult time trying to contact the original poster. Possibly unbeknownst to many, there is an online lost and found system that allows NUS students to file a report regarding their lost items. However, visitors and ex-students are automatically excluded from the system.
We need a better solution. We need a platform to connect owners of the lost items and people who found them. We want to make the lost and found process easier and minimise the hassle involved for students and visitors of NUS.
To build a web application that improves the current lost and found system in NUS.
Our web application is targeting at people who lost or found items within NUS campus. We use Meteor JS framework and MongoDB to build an interactive website for users to publish, view and search for posts about their lost/found items.
When a user has lost or found an item, he/she could first search and filter the existing posts in the Lost or Found sections to find a list of matching results. After viewing the full details of the posts, if the user has found exactly what he/she is looking for, the user may proceed to contact the original poster through the chat function in our web application, or through the handphone number provided by the original poster.
However, suppose there were no matching posts found, the user could go on to add a post, providing descriptions for the item they have lost/found. After submission, our system will suggest a list of posts that match the descriptions inputted. While waiting for any updates after the submission, the user will receive notifications if anymore matching results are found or if someone contacted them. The user could also update the status of they post to “claimed” or “found” or edit their post.