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Inspiration
The idea for Activity Center came from a personal pain point. Whenever my friends and I tried to make plans, we either ended up repeating the same few activities or canceling entirely because we couldn’t agree on where to go. We realized it wasn’t because we didn’t want to hang out, it was simply hard to discover new options and make quick decisions as a group. This app was born from the desire to make social planning easier, more fun, and more spontaneous by giving users an engaging way to explore what their city has to offer.
What it does
Activity Center is a mobile app built with React Native that helps users discover and plan activities with friends in their local area. The app integrates with the Google Places API to fetch nearby restaurants, attractions, and entertainment venues, complete with ratings, photos, and descriptions. Users can create or join groups and collaboratively swipe through activity options, just like a dating app, to indicate their preferences. Once a group has swiped, the app calculates the top matches based on everyone's input. It also features a photo gallery for each location and uses Firebase for user authentication, group management, and data storage. The result is a social, swipe-based experience that makes it easier to decide what to do and where to go with friends.
How I built it
I built the app using React Native with Expo for fast development and cross-platform support. The frontend was created using modern React Native components and libraries to ensure a smooth, intuitive user interface. I used Firebase for backend services including user authentication, real-time database storage, and group session tracking. For activity discovery, I integrated the Google Places API to dynamically fetch local venues and details like ratings, categories, and images.
Challenges we ran into
As someone still fairly new to mobile app development, there were a lot of technical challenges. I had never worked with third-party APIs before, so figuring out how to make efficient calls to Google Places and handle the responses was a steep learning curve. Firebase was also completely new to me, and setting up secure authentication, user sessions, and real-time data storage took time and experimentation. Debugging the swipe interface and making sure all the logic flowed smoothly especially with real-time group interactions was another tricky area that required persistence and research. Another major challenge/mistake was that I forgot to connect this project to GitHub at the start which forced me to build this app without version control, making it harder to debug.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
This was my first time working with APIs and using Firebase, and I’m proud that I was able to integrate both successfully. I also built the entire project from scratch, which meant stepping out of my comfort zone to learn unfamiliar technologies and workflows. Seeing the app go from an idea to a working product that I can test on a real device was an incredibly rewarding experience.
What we learned
I learned how to effectively integrate APIs into a mobile app, including how to make optimized, secure calls and handle complex JSON responses. I also gained hands-on experience with Firebase—setting up authentication flows, managing real-time databases, and syncing user data across multiple devices. Beyond the technical side, I learned the importance of designing with the user in mind and how to iterate based on what feels intuitive and useful.
What's next for Activity-Center
I believe Activity Center has real potential to help people, especially younger users, plan better and more engaging outings with their friends. My next step is to polish the app’s UI/UX, conduct testing with more users, and eventually publish it to the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. I’d also love to expand the feature set possibly adding chat functionality, calendar integration, and smart recommendations based on group behavior and past preferences.
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