Digit ry app
A Flutter app for the Digit ry student guild that replaces the paper freshman pass and songbook, with QR code stamps that are hard to fake.
Juho Torkkeli
Overview & background
The idea for the app came up during our freshman year, when we got paper freshman passes (fuksipassi) for collecting stamps at events. In our friend group we wondered whether this could work better. What if the pass was always on your phone and couldn’t get lost? It would also help if we could verify digitally who gave a stamp and for which event.
We also thought the guild’s songbook would be more practical in digital form, with search by song name or lyrics.
The goal was to replace the paper freshman pass and songbook with a secure digital version that is easier to use and makes stamps hard to fake.
Development process
We designed the app’s user interface and brainstormed how to make stamps trustworthy. Every stamp had to be verifiably given by the right person to the right student.
Our first idea was static QR codes, but we realized they would be easy to exploit. No existing solution fully met our needs, so we built our own package on top of Flutter’s QR code libraries: qr_plus on pub.dev.
qr_plus splits the QR code data into several parts, which makes a code harder to copy with a screenshot. On top of that we added timestamps and detection of screen recording.
The songbook was surprisingly easy to build, because the content already existed as JSON. We imported it into a database and indexed it for fast search.
We integrated the app with the guild’s existing membership system, so members sign in with the credentials they already have.
Outcome
The digital freshman pass replaced the paper version and got positive feedback. The digital songbook works well and makes it easier to find the right song and sing along. The app also gives the guild a base to build new features on.
Next steps
- Event sign-ups
- Weekly meal menus
Technologies & tools
- Dart / Flutter
- AWS
- Node.js (backend)