From Here to There

An app to greenify travel made for QHacks 2017.

From Here to There is an Android app which plans transportation routes while placing an emphasis on environmental consciousness. The app displays CO2 emissions generated from each mode of transportation, the money saved for using an alternative "green" modes of transportation and projected calories burned. This is meant to persuade the user to take environmentally friendly travel methods, when time and distance permit.

Problem we hope to solve:

We hope to lesson the use of traditional, high greenhouse gas emitting, cars and promote an active lifestyle.

How we are different:

We provide positive encouragement by quantifying trip statistics that may not usually be considered by users. This is done while still being a practical, simple choice for route planning by giving the user the final choice over their method of transport and their impact.

Project Reflection

This app was designed and built in one weekend under time constraints. Given more time we would want to make a couple changes:

• Route planning is done through Google Maps APIs and the actual navigation is handed off. This is not good for user retention and updates could move navigation into the app allowing user interaction throughout the trip. For example, a user could be encouraged with live calories burned updates while walking.
• Although this app follows the current Material design spec, the UI is uninspired and updates could help everything run more smoothly and present data more intuitively.
• The app uses calorie averages. A user profile system could save parameters such as height and weight to generate a more accurate estimate. A user profile system could also open up opportunities for a point system/other methods of revenue and user interaction?

All things considered, this was a good learning experience for the team to learn more about app development, Java, PHP and Github.