Home-Me

An intelligent assistant that helps you go from mover to local, connecting you with everything you need to feel at home in a new place.

Comment 4

Inspiration

  • As international students, we understand how difficult it is to go somewhere completely new and start our journey. Usually, we would find events through our school, random posters littering the streets, or word of mouth, but we believe there are more efficient ways to do that. We wanted to create an all-in-one product to seamlessly connect us to our new community.

What it does

  • Home Me is a smart GPS(find restaurants, shops) that finds live upcoming local community events for you based on your personal hobbies and interests. It can also help you plan your move by showing what utility companies are in your area, simplifying the hassle of relocation.

How we built it

Hardware:

  • Arduino with Dexter Industries GPS Shield
  • Raspberry Pi 5
  • Random touch screen(no model name found)
  • CAD 3D Prints(TPU & PLA material)

Frontend:

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JS

Backend:

  • Python(Read GPS Serial Data, gather events dynamically, gather utilities dynamically, updates PSQL db)
  • NodeJS(HTTP REST endpoints(GET and POST))
  • PSQL(Main Database)

Challenges we ran into

  • Developing both hardware and software at the same time, with time constraints, was a massive challenge. With only random hardware products lying around and us based in upstate NewYork(ZERO options for one-day shipping), we had to get creative with what we could build. API flow was challenging as it relied on AI prompt engineering, and it may not always be consistent with the output.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • We were able to send and receive NMEA GPS data from the Arduino to the Raspberry Pi over a serial connection. Then, we were able to find upcoming events dynamically based on the GPS data stream and store them in our database. We were able to find utility companies' coverage, which is very useful when relocating. Made a simple UI. The entire 3D printed casing was designed to be portable for easy relocation at will.

What we learned

  • Rapid prototyping under tight deadlines pushes you to prioritize functionality over perfection. We also gained hands-on experience integrating multiple APIs and handling real-world data reliably. Collaboration and dividing tasks efficiently made the difference in completing this project on time.

What's next for Home-Me

  • Next, we plan to add smart home integration(making Home-Me a smart home hub), a local deal finder(scour for deals at local restaurants and shops), and a simple budget tracker to help users feel even more connected, supported, and in control when settling into a new place.
  • We want to scale this project so that we can have multiple Home-Me connect to a centralized server. This way, we can have Home-Me users be able to interact with each other.

Built With

+ 6 more
Share this project:

Updates

Submission history