Fly Socially

Welcome screen
Sticker preview

Inspiration

Out of numerous business trips to U.S. and Europe from Tokyo (with JAL business class), I found it's not only tiring with these long haul flights, but also quite boring to spend hours in lounge or plane just by myself. During the flight, it's also quite awkward that only time I talk to the guy sitting next to me is "Excuse me, can I get out to restroom."

Lots of people flying business class are willing to talk to each other to make friends or expand their network. But without knowing each other it's difficult to start the conversation. So what can we do to change the flying experience from "fly lonely" to "fly socially"?

What it does

It's a service for passengers to get connected with each other and help them to start conversations easily.

Passengers can choose to get listed on JAL business class fly socially circle during online check-in, by connecting to their FB or LinkedIn, or manually input information. Even without online check-in, passengers can choose to fly socially on ticking machine.

Passengers can choose to print out a label or sticker with "JAL Fly Socially" sign and flight number, seat number and flying purpose. They can put this on their carry-in bag or shirt. With this sign, people can easily know who is open for conversations, in lounge and other waiting areas.

The "JAL Fly Socially" circle list can be securely browsed on web page. If people don't prefer to expose their information on the list, they can also choose to only print out sticker.

How I built it

Ruby on Rails, PHP and a wireless sticker printer.

Boxes and LEGO blocks for the ticketing machine stand.

Pepper!

Challenges I ran into

Connection from site deployed on internet to a service run on local PC, had to open WIFI router port
Make Pepper work... also it's kinda slow in displaying web pages