Inspiration
We are all interns in New York and have quickly become aware of the amount of homeless people in New York. We saw an enormous need that needed our assistance and we thought we could provide some help.
How it works
Our app consists of a shared map. Users of our app can drop pins on this map where they see homeless people. From the pins we create a heat density map so different individuals, corporations, and businesses can see where the greatest concentration of homeless people are. Thus volunteers can organize their efforts in areas that will have the greatest impact.
Challenges I ran into
We decided to use a specific framework for this project called Meteor JS. The reason being that we can build a web-based app and it will automatically integrate for mobile as well. However, we didn't anticipate the large learning curved involved as the syntax was unfamiliar to all of us. In retrospect, we would have chosen a framework more familiar to us to allow more time for development and less time on setting up and learning to use the framework.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We created a shared google map that any user can drop pins for locations of homeless people or locations of events. We created a heat map index of the dropped pins to show where the concentrations of homeless people are that any individual or group can use.
What I learned
When development time is short stick to something you are familiar with. Also, have a detailed plan of how to proceed through development.
What's next for HudsonHackDHO
We believe with consistent effort we could incorporate a login function for users that they could use to attend events. With each event they could see every member that is attending and see how large of a group they are a part of. Also, when an event is created within a defined radius of where a user dropped a pin, they will receive an email notification notifying them of the event and thanking them for helping create it.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.