This was my first hackathon submission ever! At HackUTD in November 2019, my teammates and I decided to build a game to help people learn how to manage their finances more effectively. Here is our Devpost submission from that hackathon:

Inspiration

Many students today are not well educated about their finances, and we’d like to fix that problem.

What it does

You Are Not A Loan simulates a recent college graduate’s finances, calculating ten-year annuity rates for student loans, utility bills, rent, personal expenses, and investments. The user’s decisions affect their happiness, credit score, and account balance.

Info tooltips give users information about these financial concepts, important to both winning the game and managing real-life money.

How we built it

We used React.js to build this web app.

Challenges we ran into

Learning React and integrating CSS with it was challenging, in addition to simulating complex personal finances.

Accomplishments that we’re proud of

• Realistically simulating interest and purchase decisions
• Making a usable UI
• Promoting financial literacy in high school and college students!

What we learned

In the course of this project, we have learned React.js from scratch, in addition to some of the best practices that make development quicker and faster. Also, we have increased our own financial literacy, after doing research for this game.

What’s next for You Are Not A Loan

We plan to greatly expand the financial factors considered in the simulation. Possible candidates for inclusion include:

• investing in bonds
• buying a house
• buying a car
• starting a company
• paying for insurance
• and so on

Built With

css3, html5, react