Motif

Inspiration

Many people in America are forgetful and don't read their many important text messages. Our app helps them save time while still getting their messages. We wanted to positively impact our community as our stress filled lives leaves less room for organization thus this app would help us partially automate the process.

What it does

Saves the user's time by parsing through a user's messages and uploading them to a database which has its data linked to a website that gives the user a gist of their text messages and also might give the user links to a list of potential eBay items that they may be interested in if the user receives a message wanting to buy anything. If the message has a location then Motif will give directions to that location. The user will also receives an estimated transit time courtesy of google maps matrix, the user can also adjust the days the message looks for, the user will also get a google calendar that features events they might go to.

How we built it

We used java, javascript, firebase, and dreamweaver to create the program. The website was created with html5 and css3. Firebase was used for authentication and also as a realtime database for adding all the text messages in the website. JSON was used to store the transit times and Google's map matrix was used to calculate transit

Challenges we ran into

Getting the website to cooperate with us. There was also technical issues with firebase we had to deal with most of with were subtle like the authorization rules that forced us to spend a significant amount of time debugging on android to find out the issue. We also tried to use voicemail alongside sms's for better effect but soon realized that it was extremely had and not well documented to use voicemails in code.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Trying something new and branching out of our comfort zone

What we learned

We learned more about firebase and jQuery and their applications as well as the google and eBay and using them to guide the user to purchase what they may be interested in. We also got way more comfortable with firebase as previously we were constantly referring to youtube tutorials to now referring to documentation instead.

What's next for Motif

We're going to add more features such using the native Google API instead of using string concatenation to refer to google maps which will help add previews to the website enhancing the user experience , geotagging was attempted but ultimately we never succeeded in actually implementing it (We originally tried to use pebble time), and a voice messaging system which was also attempted but scrapped due to time.