Hack the 6ix 2021: AquaTrack

An app designed for people who want to be more water conscious.

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Hack the 6ix 2021: AquaTrack

An app designed for people who want to be more water conscious.

Inspiration

For Hack the 6ix 2021, as environmental issues become ever more present in our society, we are all growing to be more conscious of our own effects on the environment. At times, we must all have questioned at least once whether we are creating a positive impact on the environment or whether we are damaging it. With such, we were inspired to create an application that will allow us to better track and understand our effect on the environment and so allow us to reflect on our habits and change them.

What it does

This application is designed specifically for people who want to be more conscious with their household water use. This app will allow the users to gain insight to their water usage and also compare their progress throughout the week. The app has three main features:

  • Tracking amount of water used: To track the amount of water used, users can choose to either add data based on a timer or a numerical value. The former would be useful for running waters while the latter is more useful for containers that store water. The user is then asked to input the rate of flow or the volume of the container that they used. The program then calculates the total amount of water used for that certain activity and records it down.
  • Displaying the amount of water used today: Our program will also continuously update the total amount of water used that day and display it on the app.
  • Compiling the daily data to a pie chart: The data for each data is then compiled and displayed in a chart, so the users can view their progress. We have made a weekly chart, monthly chart, yearly chart, and all-time chart.

How we built it

We used android studio to code the entire program and decided on the JSON file format to store our data. We believe that the JSON file format is enough to store data since there is no need for any relationships between our data. However, if at some point we would further develop this application, we will migrate data into an sqlite database.

Challenges we ran into

As a group filled with first-time hackers, the largest challenge that we faced was in initializing the project. Especially the part when we’re trying to figure out how we could use different tools and technologies, merging them into a single mobile app. We also encountered problems regarding the app that users might question, such as how the measurement of our app could be accurate. With the uncertainties and human errors that might occur in the measurement process, this is something that we could further develop. For technical issues, it is quite difficult to manage a system to log errors without impeding users' experience.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were proud that we are able to come with a feasible solution to tackle the crucial issue of water scarcity within this hackathon. Moreover, we were able to complete our first hackathon project through extensive collaboration, meticulous research and by persevering through the project timeframe. Throughout the project, we learned what it is like to learn in a working environment where tasks are being carried out simultaneously to achieve a certain goal. Always being a learner and always inquiring what can we do better is something that our team were proud of.

What we learned

We learned the practical use of programming in the real world. Being able to experience coding for an actual environmental issue allowed us to understand better about the struggles most programmers faced to produce the software and products we use in a daily basis. Furthermore, we learned about how github would be used in a team and how efficient it is in doing so.

What's next for AquaTrack

Software:

  • Account creation feature: Users will be able to create accounts for themselves. They will also get the option to calibrate their own water discharge from taps and showers. Otherwise, they can decide to opt out from calibrating, but we will warn them that the results will not be as accurate.
  • Check out friends’ activities: Users can choose to make their account private or public and view friends’ activities.
  • To do so, the application might migrate to an online database. Hardware:
  • Water-proof fitbit-like watch that is simple to use.
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