Inspiration
We first thought of cities being quarantined due to the novel coronavirus, and wanted to make an app to help people avoid unsafe areas. This then expanded to cover notifying users of dangers other than the coronavirus, like areas of recent crime.
What it does
Tracks the user via a smartphone app, then sends them a text via Twilio if they enter a geofenced area
How we built it
The tracking was done through radar.io, which then calls a Google Cloud Function written in python to lookup the user's phone number and text them through Twilio. Users register and unregister their device through a web interface served on Google Cloud and written with Node.js, which in turn interfaces with a MongoDB Atlas database to keep track of device ID's and phone numbers.
Challenges we ran into
We had no experience with developing web apps or automation using API's, which took a significant amount of time to get working.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We were able to smoothly implement a notification process, so a text is sent within seconds of a user entering a geofence.
What we learned
We learned a lot about building both web apps and the network infrastructure to support them, as well as developing in different languages and frameworks to use each one's strengths.
What's next for Automated Notifications using GEoLocation
Two-factor authentication for more security, automated way to add and modify geofences
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.