GPS Meter Tracker (IDon'tPayParkingTickets Pufferfish)

GPS Meter Tracker – also in‑app as IDon'tPayParkingTickets Pufferfish – is a mobile prototype that helps drivers find and understand parking meters around them.
At its heart it’s a location‑aware map & meter database. An optional conversational assistant provides quick answers, but the focus is always on getting you where to park.

Project Story

Inspiration

This started during a hackathon lunch in Newark.
My teammates and I were brainstorming when I (Jimmy) came back to the car and found a fresh parking ticket on the windshield.
That little moment – “if only my phone could warn me before this happens” – sparked the idea for an app that knows where the meters are and tells you when you’re driving into one.

What it does

• Tracks your GPS position in real time and compares it against a set of parking‑meter coordinates.
• Shows nearby meters on a simple map, pops alerts when you enter a metered zone, and lets you tap a spot for rate or time‑limit info.
• Includes a light chat assistant as a convenience, but the core is the location/mapping logic.

How we built it

We used Expo to scaffold a React Native app so we could move fast without installing native toolchains.
App.js handles permission requests and location updates; a small JSON file serves as our sample meter database.
The chat modal (ChatUI.js) calls out to parkingAssistant.js, which hits Google’s generative API.
Everything was added iteratively over the hackathon afternoon – get GPS working, plot meters, add alerts, then layer on the chat feature.

Challenges we ran into

• GPS readings can jump around, especially on Android – we had to filter out absurd leaps.
• Handling denied location permission gracefully so the app still made sense.
• Packing a scrolling chat, quick‑question buttons, and an optional video into a modal that behaved on portrait and landscape.
• Taming the expo‑av player so the avatar clip wasn’t cropped.
• Dealing with flaky network calls to the AI backend.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We shipped a working prototype within the hackathon’s time frame that actually follows your location and warns you about meters.
Having a live chat assistant and a looping video avatar felt like fun extras, but the GPS‑meter mapping is the real achievement, especially given how little time we had.
Getting all of that to run in Expo Go on both iOS and Android was a nice bonus.

What we learned

We learned the Expo/React Native workflow, and how to ask for and watch location permissions. We also learned how to collaborate quickly as a small team, prioritize what works, and make something usable under pressure.
Above all, we now have a prototype that answers the question that started it all: “where can I park without getting a ticket?”

Built With

• expo.io
• geminiapi
• html
• javascript
• react-native