CANnected - Mayor's Innovation Challenge (City of Kingston)

Inspiration

• Recognizing the issue of improper can recycling and the collection of carelessly thrown-away cans by the homeless population in Kingston, we wanted to bridge the gap between people with excess alcoholic empties and the collectors who search for them, consequently improving the rate of proper can recycling

What it does

Connects donors and collectors of alcoholic empties

• Donors can post empties they have to be picked up
• Collectors can see available pick-ups near them

How we built it

1. Create a database to hold user account information and post information.
2. Create a location tool to determine the distance between collector and pick-up location.
3. Developed front-end skeleton.
4. Integrated database and location function with the skeleton website.
5. Expand the location and post information to find the closest pick-up point for a collector.

Challenges we ran into

• Integrating our front-end into our back-end involved reformatting the front end greatly
• The location aspect of our system was initially not responding properly to the computer's current location

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Using user location to calculate distances and travel times walking to nearby pick-ups
• Collectors can only see the pick-up location when they have claimed a pick-up, therefore the donor is not at risk of multiple people having access to the donor's exact location
• Collectors will see the pick-up location closest to them first, allowing for increased user convenience

What we learned

• How to use web technologies like CSS and React.js to customize the front-end of a web app
• How to manage a database using MongoDB
• How to manipulate location data to calculate distances and compare locations

What's next for CANnected

1. Creating a can donation and collection credibility check where users have to submit photos of their pick-ups
2. Integrate a points system to incentivize donors to post their empties and use the web app
3. Develop a mobile application version for ease of use

Built With

• css
• google-maps
• javascript
• mongodb
• mongoose
• node.js
• react.js