ArcActive

Inspiration

As a runner living in California, I noticed how important it was be aware of the environment I was running in. Changing climate and excessive urban traffic posed daily threats to my health and wellbeing. Running is a taxing sport, even in the best conditions, so I found that it is vital to have constant awareness off changing conditions.

What it does

The ArcActive app ensures that athletes of all skill levels know the hazards before they go, provides a route based on user preferences, preps runners with water intake advice, and alerts runner of environmental changes, so that they can make informed decisions, optimizing their progress and performance.

How we built it

We built our mobile app using React Native, Expo, and the ArcGIS JavaScript Maps SDK. We chose to use the React Native framework because we wanted the cross-platform interoperability that it offers. We specifically used the ArcGIS Maps SDK for routing and obstacle avoidance. For real-time hazard data, we query the TomTom traffic API and we get air quality data from PurpleAir.

Challenges we ran into

It was really difficult to get the Esri map widget to render properly on a mobile platform, so we instead opted to give a web demonstration of our application. We also had no idea how to change a route on-the-fly until a mentor told us about how to add barriers to an ArcGIS route.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

For all the members of our group, this was our first foray into mobile app development, so the fact that we could get something working in such a short time is really something we're proud of. Additionally, getting the obstacle avoidance feature was really quite difficult and getting it working in time was a major achievement.

What we learned

We learned a lot about how powerful the ArcGIS SDK is at advanced routing features such as barrier placement and dynamic routing. We also learned how to tackle mobile app development using React Native and Expo, which was a great experience for all of us, who had never experienced the pains of mobile app development before.