Go Forth

8-Bit themed UCF GPS that tracks way more than just buildings. It's capable of finding Vending machines and classrooms via indoor navigation system! No more walking around buildings like a lost puppy.

Comment

Inspiration

Honestly our biggest inspiration was the venue of the hackathon itself. We always got lost in the business/Engineering building cluster. However, there wasn't any sort of well-made map that was easy to view, and we were sick of going in circles trying to find things.

What it does

So, our GPS functions like a normal one outdoors, but once you get to a building you have the option to switch to indoor mode! Through a series of pictures guided by your favorite mascot, it can take you right to your class.

How we built it

Our backend primarily consists of python to run dictionaries that keep track of hallways and their corresponding directions. The front end uses a combination of typescript, html, JavaScript, and CSS to take information from the backend to really put together the design and indoor guide visuals together.

Challenges we ran into

Initially we learned why indoor GPS isn't really a thing and that's because geo-locating indoors just doesn't work that well. So, we had to get creative and make a user interactive guide in order for accurate location updates. Think Google Earth style but for indoors.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Being able to work together as a team despite us having to work at different times. We all still had work or other obligations to attend to and couldn't all be together in person for the entire event. It was quite difficult to communicate through discord for a lot of things but in the end, we managed to make a working demo.

What we learned

We learned how to use GitHub and pushing files from Visual Studio to update GitHub.

What's next for Go Forth

Because of time constraints and having to locate smaller things like vending machine locations by hand we were limited to floor 1 of Engineering building 1. However, we want to map out many other buildings on campus and points of interest that are outside buildings at UCF. We also want a more sophisticated outdoor GPS that navigates through sidewalks much more smoothly and accounts for pathways that aren't displayed much on the regular GPS.

Share this project:

Updates

Submission history