Inspiration
We were inspired by the Ford tech talk to leverage their API and create an app that would help millions across the world. From Uber drivers to Truck drivers to a new Teen driver, the app has the potential to help many learn about their driving habits.
What it does
Connects to Car api via SmartDeviceLink and streams data for a user. This data is streamed for a user in realtime, and another user logged into a shared account can view their speed, rpm, gps, and other data in realtime!
How we built it
Using XCode to build the frame and structure for the iOS app, used Firebase for authentication, storage, and their real-time database, and using the Ford API and SmartDeviceLink to connect to a vehicle and subscribe to vehicle data in real time.
Challenges we ran into
We ran into the challenges of seamlessly integrating our project to work well with the api and firebase realtime data. It was very tricky using the ford api because it had visual simulations which we took the realtime data from, processed it, and displayed it in on our app. Learning a new coding language was also an obstacle our group had to overcome as two out of three members of our team had no experience with swift and also the editing platform we used, Xcode.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We’re very proud of the iPhone app we created. It was very rewarding to be able to stream live data from the Ford Api app and store it in our database in Firebase. We are also very proud of our UI and how seamless and simple it is, as well as being able to implement two types of databases, both realtime and static for the different data that we needed to store. We also believe we have a strong use case of helping people to become better drivers both for safety and to save money on gas.
What we learned
As one of the the lesser experienced members of our team, I learned quite a bit from this project. I had never done such a large scale project with no skeleton code and this was my first time accomplishing this feat. On top of learning a whole new language, I discovered the beauty of app development and platforms that make realtime data useful such as firebase. A lot of these tools my fellow member had experience with and so I learned from good hands. App development was also very fascinating and Xcode makes it so easy and comprehendible with their storyboards.
What's next for backseat
We want to take our app into the App Store and continue to implement cool features. The most immediate feature we would like to implement is retrieving real life speed limit data from the Google Api and cross referencing it with the location in which the users are driving. This would allow us to have a very accurate approximation of how often and how fast a given user goes over the speed limit. By having this information we would be more empowered to warn our users and help improve their risky driving.
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