Help Me! App

An app that lets you click a button. If the button isn’t clicked again in X amount of minutes, it’ll send a text message to certain contacts you set up along the lines of “Hey! I might be in danger."

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Inspiration

Our inspiration began with an acquaintance who had a frightening experience when attending an event and would have loved to contact a nearby friend for a pickup, especially given the potential worst scenario.

What it does

Help Me! lets you click a button. If that button isn’t clicked again in X amount of minutes, it’ll send a text message to certain contacts you set up along the lines of “Hey! I might be in danger."

How we built it

The languages, frameworks, API’s used for the development of Help Me! Include:

  • JavaScript
  • React Native
  • Expo CLI
  • Twilio API

P.S. - None of us had prior experience with React Native before this hackathon!

Challenges we ran into

Our team ran into quite a few errors. Two particularly tricky issues were implementing a real-time function within Expo's tricky hook conditions as well as storing the user's circle of contacts locally. However, through lots of trial and error, combined with help from QHacks’ amazing mentors, we were able to get all aspects of “Help Me!” functioning!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re incredibly proud of having a fully interactive countdown app that does not need a database to message the user's contacts!

What we learned

As a group, all members of the team worked together in making this project the best it can. With the restriction of having minimal previous knowledge about React.js, Twilio, and Expo, we were able to work under the pressure of learning new APIs and delivering a helpful project for the community!

What's next for Help Me App

There are many things that can be improved throughout our application. We had many ideas when implementing this project that unfortunately could not be done under the time constraints. Some options we had were creating a dropdown for the timer, a settings menu for more configurations, and an easier method to ensure the intents of the user's input such as holding down on the button, swipe gestures, etc. Our team has confidence that this app will ensure an interconnected direct contact when in a dangerous situation.

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