Inspiration
We're a well-traveled group with a wide range of interests shared between ourselves. We decided upon tackling a centralized solution for being able to get the most of a domestic road trip - and be able to plan around a (college student's) budget. Whether your road trip is intended to be a day or a week, you should have the option of knowing about any local, well-received places of interest.
What it does
MojaMapa is intended to be accessible via a website, where users can apply filters to their trip planning. We wanted users to be able to learn about local museums or restaurants that could be possible destinations along the trip. We wanted users to have the natural experience of talking through the planning of a trip, without having to go through the hassle of selecting the destinations and pitstops by hand. However, our Amazon Alexa skill ended up being left as an in-beta feature and is still in development.
How we built it
The website itself was created and designed using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. We opted for a simple design that drew upon the project name's inspiration -- "moja mapa" means "my map" in Polish. We harnessed the capabilities of the Google Geocoding API to convert addresses to geo-coordinates, integrating these features into an editable map that populates with places of interest.
Challenges we ran into
Amazon Alexa proved to be a challenge -- initially, development of our Alexa Skill began in Javascript and was moved into Java. Not to forget, creating the connection with the Google Maps API and the highly-rated reviews so that our map would be populated with places of interest.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
As a team, we were able to effectively storyboard our idea's appearance, capabilities, and plan our development process. We were also able to troubleshoot bugs with consistency, iron out any CSS quirks, and grapple with Amazon Alexa for the first time.
What we learned
There were a lot of firsts for our team, with one team member attending their first hackathon. We learned how to integrate multiple APIs into a web application, in addition to website hosting and more regarding the Amazon Alexa development kits available.
What's next for MojaMapa
MojaMap still has plenty of room to grow and develop additional features! Creating a "Log In" feature for users would be the optimal next step, with users' planned trips, completed itineraries, and in-progress trip planning being available. The interface design would furthermore be optimized to reflect these features. We would also like to be able to sync these itineraries with users' personalized calendars, with times and places of saved places of interests being accessible outside of the website application itself after being finalized.
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