Inspiration
Instead of just helping users identify plants and care for them or find nearby trails, this project encourages people to connect with nature on a deeper level by slowing down and truly observing nature. While countless apps already exist for listing outdoor activities, or identifying and taking care of plants, I created something different. BioSnap encourages people to go outside, explore their local ecosystems, and search for specific plants. I also wanted to make nature more interesting for everyone by turning exploration into a fun, interactive challenge.
What it does
BioSnap is an interactive plant finder app designed to gamify botanical exploration and discovery. Instead of just identifying a species from a photo, the app challenges users to locate, track, and log specific plants out in the wild, turning nature exploration into an engaging, goal-oriented experience.
How we built it
I built the application using a full-stack architecture, incorporating backend services to handle user data and dynamic database queries. For plant data, I integrated the GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) API to retrieve plant species data. I also implemented custom frontend components to provide a responsive interface for managing user profiles, achievements, and interactive maps.
Challenges we ran into
Initially, I explored using Pl@ntNet for my core functionality. However, after evaluating its feature set and data structures, I realized that GBIF database better served my specific search and discovery requirements, which is why I started using it to generate the challenge. Additionally, early in development, my custom objects failed to load images properly as the underlying dataset lacked images for many of the targeted species, which required me to build fallback strategies. I was able to solve the issue with the help of Gemini 3.5 flash. I also was struggling on deciding getting a good UI design, where I took inspiration from my previous projects as well as a bit of help from Claude Sonnet 5 Medium to help me to create the frontend.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I successfully changed my data pipeline to GBIF to create a fully functional plant finder experience and developed a gamified discovery loop that transforms passive plant identification into an active exploration challenge. I also built a structured framework for user achievements and tracking.
What we learned
I learned how to use the GBIF biological database and work with datasets that don’t always have images for every plant. To handle this, I created a fallback system that keeps searching until it finds a plant with an available image.
What's next for Bio Snap
Next for Bio Snap, I want to implement a complete sign-up and log-in user authentication system, deploy a fully functioning leaderboard system with support for both global and regional rankings, introduce a broader set of badges, milestones, and challenges to enhance user engagement, and port and optimize the application to run seamlessly as a web platform.
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