Auxilia

Inspiration

Growing up in New York, I come across hundreds, if not thousands of people daily. I am lucky enough to have many of them in my life daily and wanted to create something that would help everyone have the same because there are truly remarkable people out there.That's how I came up with Auxilia, which is Latin for "helping hands".

What it does

Auxilia is a location-based app that is like a small digital town. Citizens can ask questions and receive answers from the immediate area. You will know where there's been a fire or a good deal just by asking.You can know what kind of interesting characters you're around. You will know if there is a doctor in the area. Auxilia uses a point system that is also used as currency. Citizens can "tip" each other for their anonymous help. Auxilia is set up in a cloud server to make for efficient data collection and tracking. It is designed to run on mobile devices for optimal use.

How I built it

I knew that I wanted this in a cloud server because it is an application that would need to be able to handle high volume. I took it up to google app engine and researched what kind of api[s] I would have to use to make it a functioning location-based application. I used python for its easy-handling syntax.

Challenges I ran into

I knew from the start that the entire project was going to be a challenge. I had a clear vision, but I would have to work with things I did not have experience in whatsoever. I was to present on a projector and it ended giving me the blue screen of death. That was fun. Fortunately, I was able to bounce back, download the SDK for app engine and piece together some bits that would make this functional.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm proud that I pushed myself to learn more and more, despite many mistakes, failures and unfortunate mishaps throughout the project.

What I learned

I deep dove into Google App Engine and worked with python, two things that are brand new to me.

What's next for Auxilia

The plan is to get Auxilia up and running on mobile platforms, so anyone can register as a citizen.

Built With

• geo-location-api
• google-app-engine
• json
• python
• python-package-index
• yaml