CUNYAdventures

Inspiration

This web application is inspired by the virtual technology of Pokemon Go and how it has gotten its users to go out and explore. We wanted to create something similar for CUNY students and realize that an existing problem: students, especially freshmen and transfers, don’t have a clue on navigating through the campus!

What it does

The web application sends the user a notification when the user is approximately 30ft from the hidden location.

Rules of the Game

1. Adventure must take place within a CUNY Campus
2. Points will be awarded twice for certain areas, such as the gym.
3. New reward tiers will be unlocked after reaching certain “levels” of accumulated total points.
4. Areas that award points continuously will have a cooldown of 24 hours and will always have lower gains compared to areas that award points only once.

How I built it

For the front-end, we used the google-maps api, html, css, and js. For the back-end, we used the spark java framework.

Challenges I ran into

One of the biggest challenge we’ve faced is connection the back-end with the front-end, and something we still haven’t resolved.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We’re astounded with our own patience and tenacity! We’ve gotten so much done in spite of the unreliable internet connection and that itself is a terrific feat.

What I learned

We learned about the tools we can use for building web applications. There’s Amazon’s Web Service, IBM’s Blue Mix, and Firebase. In the future, we may use these tools for other projects.

What's next for CUNY adventure

Depending on the success of the app with CUNY schools, CUNY Adventures may move onto college towns. With these college towns, we don’t have to limit ourselves to just to just the campus, we can expand to local attractions. Hidden locations can be placed anywhere within these towns and there is much more for a student to explore. Plus, universities in college towns probably have working relationships with local businesses and can negotiate with them to offer better prizes. For example, after accruing up to 50pts, I can redeem it for a permanent discount at a local eatery.