Inspiration
Currently, the urban centers of India are inundated with patients due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This also causes people to not visit hospitals and clinics in the fear of contracting the virus, even when it would be in their better interests to do so.
What it does
FastAid is a web app where patients can request help and people can sign up to be volunteers. Patients in need of care can use the website to put out a call for help. They enter their contact information and their ailment. The web app then collects their location and notifies volunteers within a 500-meter radius. The volunteer and patient can then communicate on the best course of action, which can range from a call to a visitation.
How I built it
The backend along with the database was set up on Firebase. It provided real-time database access enhancing the user experience on our website. Javascript was mainly used to iterate through the database and store information back into the tables. HTML pages were created for the front end service along with streaming using CSS. The pages were bootstrapped to make it mobile user friendly. Ajax, a jQuery library, was used to make the website asynchronous with its data. The Google Maps API was used to track the current location of the user and to send help without any hassle to the volunteer. The Twilio API send texts messages to the volunteer to notify the volunteer of the patient's distress call. These pages were served on Node JS in order to integrate the API's and Javascript pages.
Challenges I ran into
The first issue was the restricted functionality of the web app since the Google map API was not compatible with Mozilla Firefox. Secondly, there were cross-platform issues, resulting in the program being unable to run on Mac OS, which we solved. We solved this by. Lastly a last minute issue that we could not resolve was upon hosting the site onto Heroku via git, our Twilio account details were rotated - this was because posting account confidentials via plain text is not allowed . This is to be fixed by storing the Auth SId in an .env file and making GitHub ignore said .env.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We worked across different platforms which was arduous at first, but later proved to be a learning moment since we were still able to work effectively. Also, our teammates were spread across different timezones and so we are proud to have overcome that hurdle. Having not worked with firebase before we were glad to have a successful crack at it.
What I learned
This was our first time working with Firebase and node.js. On this project we gained valuable web app dev skills that we did not previously possess. We learned just how easily we can improve the world around us with simple ideas.
What's next for FastAid
We're looking to embed a Google maps link in the text message sent to the volunteer to easily guide them to the patient's location. Furthermore, we'd like to identify keywords within our patient's requests so as to better educate and choose our volunteers. Also, we'd like to add a feedback form to improve the experience for the patients and promote better service.
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