Friend Finder

• 

  Settings

• 

  Map Options

• 

  People around me

• 

  Directions (text)

• 

  Distance and heading

• 

  Directions (visual)

• 

  Location permissions

Inspiration

Make the virtual world meet the real geographic world.

What it does

It lets people see each other's location in real-time on a Google map. No app to download, to registration needed, completely anonymous.

How we built it

The web app was built using HTML and Javascript, using the MDL lite library. The back-end database is using firestore and geofirestore to allow making queries based on geographic locations.

Challenges we ran into

Getting JavaScript code to properly get GPS location to work on a wide variety of devices was a bit tricky, it still sometimes fails to trigger asking the user for permission. Getting the proper location format from geofirestore was also not as straightforward as it should be.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Having a live website that anyone can use.

What we learned

Lots of math involved, getting distance and heading between two geographic locations, converting between metric and imperial units, etc. Getting consistency in units was also a bit challenging, some JavaScript functions don't always make it clear what unit the number they return is in.

What's next for Friend Finder

Expand the capabilities of the app, allow users to set temporary notes at certain geographic locations, allow users to send messages to each-other, etc.

Built With

• firebase
• geofirestore
• javascript