mApI | Devpost

Inspiration

When planning activities with friends, the event planner usually has to navigate through multiple apps in order to bring everyone together. For example, when planning a party, they must open their messages app to ask people about their availability and their preferences. Then, if they have no ideas in mind, they must open Google or Maps to browse possible activities for them to do. Then, day of said plans, they check location tracking apps such as Life360 to ensure people will arrive on time. All of these applications are tedious and it would be so much better if we had all of these features in one application for event planning and checking up on everyone!

What it does

This application combines location tracking, event planning, and easy communication all in one. It even integrates an AI chatbot that helps you decide and plan itineraries for you and your friends so that when you're out of ideas, there's still stuff to do!

How we built it

We used Next.js as our base in order to make a web application that was deployed using Vercel. We then used the Gemini API in order to power our AI chatbot and connect it to recommendations for users. We have all of our logins and personal information saved in a Firebase database.

Challenges we ran into

Multiple times we would have merge conflicts in the git that were a little difficult to resolve. Sometimes it would lead to more errors or some content being overwritten. Another challenge was that it was difficult to connect all of our individual parts together - the map, the AI chatbot, the login page... it was a lot of code!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

It was incredible that we were able to develop an application that has a chatbot that recommends and even plans out itineraries and events for people to attend based off a small question. It was also great that we were able to implement a nice sleek and minimalist UI that we really liked, as it makes the application look very polished and developed.

What we learned

Crystal has never used an API before and had no idea what she was doing going into the project, but learned about how to use API keys and include the information that these cool APIs can provide.

What's next for mApI

We would like to be able to include Yelp reviews and help them influence our chatbot's recommendations. Based on what the user is saying, the chatbot would reply back that other people with similar interests either liked or disliked this activity or place. We would also like to implement some fun character design and additional personalization for each person's avatars, such as holiday wear or special clothing.