We’ve just been assigned our groups for the rest of the semester and our group has settled on an open source project called MAPLE (Massachusetts Platform for Legislative Engagement). It seems a little random, but there were many considerations going into this project. The project is fairly new and about to launch its website; after taking a look at the state of the website so far, we noted quite a few UI/component pieces that we felt we could add on already. They would be simple but effective improvements as our group has more primary experience in design and frontend. Additionally, we liked that the github repo and communication channels looked pretty active and clearly laid out. All information related to installs, contributions, communication, etc was easy to find and accessible so we felt more confident being a part of the community.

So far, I really enjoy the group dynamic and we have reached out to the MAPLE leads and are finding times to set up a call before jumping in so that they can tell us more clearly what they need help on. One thing we didn’t expect was that they seem to need more help on the backend which is one area we don’t have a lot of experience in. However, I think we are interested in learning and are also hopeful that they’ll still need help on some smaller design/frontend tasks. Overall, I’m hopeful that we can make meaningful contributions to this project but we’ll have more information after our intro call.