ARK

Carpooling to Save Lives

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Inspiration

One devastating effect of the rising global temperature is the simultaneous increase in extreme weather across the world. From hurricanes, flooding and drought, the trend has been very clear in showing that weather is getting more and more dangerous across the world. Such can be seen in examples as recent as hurricane Michael, one of the most intense hurricanes to ever hit the United States. ARK aims to reduce damages and save lives in face of these natural disasters by aiding people without transportation. It also has the additional effect of reducing traffic which makes the situation safer for all.

What it does

ARK is a a system where people can coordinate with each other in order to escape natural disasters. Users can sign up using their google account or their Facebook. There are two types of ARK users, drivers and passengers. People can sign up to be a driver and aid with rescuing various passengers or sign up as a passenger and ride a long with someone else. Once logged in there will be a map on the website that will show the user's current location as well as other drivers or passengers in the area. From there people can locate passengers in need if they are a driver, or see if drivers are nearby if they are a passenger. This system is ideally used before the natural disasters occurs so that people have time to get organized and so that everyone has access to the internet. This helps people who do not have a form of transportation as well as reducing traffic by requiring a smaller amount of cars on the road in order for everyone to evacuate.

How we built it

The front end architecture is very simple only using HTML CSS and Javascript. The here.com API is used for displaying user locations as well as route planning. Firebase was used for user authentication and storage of user data.

Challenges we ran into

The here.com API was something that was fairly new to us. We had to spend quite a bit of time studying the documentation and even then we ran into many problems as a result of our unfamiliarity with it.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to learn and effectively implement two brand new APIs in such a short period of time.

What we learned

  • How to use here.com map API for location data and routing/directions
  • How to use Firebase for user authentication and storing user data

What's next for ARK

  • Being able to communicate with others using various signals on the map
  • A mobile application with Twillio integration so that the application can be more effectively used during an natural disaster
  • Better integration with Facebook such as integration with messenger and knowledge of nearby friends and events
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