Guardian Angel

Guardian Angel is an Android app that allows users to either drop off or find and pickup Guardian Drops near their location. Guardian drops are roadside care packages like water to cool down an engine

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Inspiration

Growing up in Big Bear California, many cars would be caught overheating trying to traverse coming up our mountain. Luckily there were a group of helpful people that would leave water along turnouts in the road to help cool down this car. We wanted to create an app that would allow users to either find these turnouts near them, or to be able to mark that they dropped of these packages, that way this resource is readily available for everyone.

What it does

There are two different types of users: those who drop off a Guardian package, and those are seeking to pick one up. The app's simple GUI has two buttons to easily lead the user's to their necessary areas.

If someone wishes to Drop off a Guardian package, the simply click the button titles "Be an Angel" and then fill out two simple text fields describing the item, and the quantity to be dropped off. Then when the user selects "Confirm", their Guardian package is posted to all users on a shared map.

If someone wishes to find a package and claim it, then they simply tap on the button labeled, "Check for Guardians:", and a map will pop up showing their current location, and posted Guardian drops around them in their area. The user may then click on a pin on the map, and see the contents of the drop. If the user is satisfied with whats in the drop, they then can get directions to it.

*************************************CURRENTLY WORKING:************************************************** -The initial GUI with the "Check for Guardians" and "Be an Angel" buttons. -When the user clicks on the buttons, they are taken to a Google map that will show their current location -The user's location is stored in a Database when they click "Be An Angel"

*******************EVERYTHING ELSE IS STILL NEEDING IMPLEMENTATION!!**************************

How we built it

We built this app using Android Studio, Kotlin, Google Maps API, Google's Firebase, and a whole lotta trouble shooting threads.

Challenges we ran into

We Ran into our ultimate doom when we tried requesting back info from the database where all the Guardian Drop locations were stored. The only functionality that we could find with Firebase that allowed retrieval from the DB is with getting info only when data had been updated in the DB.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of developing a half working app that integrated google map's API as well as the Firebase DB with never having experience with any of the development tools that were involved in the process.

What we learned

We learned the Syntax and Markdown of Kotlin, a good amount of developing tools in Android Studio, how to store infor in Firebase, and how to use a google map api in the app, alongside finding a current location.

What's next for Guardian Angel

For guardian angel, we still need to fully flesh out the app, however going beyond that, we wish to maybe extend the functionality beyond the scope of roadside assistance, and into other realms such as food drops for the homeless.

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