Inspiration
Amidst our idea formation stage, we wanted to build a civic engagement tool that would encourage participation from all groups (young and old) towards a wholesome direction to improve the community. Nature Walk, then, was developed with a focus on environmental cleanup, an area that is often overlooked over more polarizing topics.
What it does
Nature Walk provides an interactive and immersive experience to encourage conscious environmental participation. This application provides a unique game-like experience towards community clean up efforts, allowing users to cash in their points to provide a donation their choice of environmental group. Cleaning up a city will not only increase the player's points, but also make the city's avatar animal more happy as the city is further cleaned. Consistent large group clean-up events are also held to provide more opportunities for people to connect and improve their community's cleanliness and environment.
How we built it
We used a combination of React with MapBox to provide the interactive front-end experience. Our backend was implemented through Firebase, which stored city data, event data, and user data. Finally, our deployment was handled by Vercel.
Challenges we ran into
Firebase was severely under documented. It was a challenging experience both technically and mentally to trial and error various guides that could be depreciated. Utilizing Mapbox also had its share of difficulties, as it's not a very widely used API. We pivoted from using 3D models to 2D models due to performance issues.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We achieved a working project with interesting UI design and a well-functioning backend. We believe our project may be more unique than other groups due to its focus on environmental civic participation and game design.
What we learned
Firebase is challenging. There are many pros and cons of using this software. We found experience that will prove valuable for future choice of database systems. We also learned Mapbox was a very interesting user-design choice to encourage participation. We reinforced the power of teamwork and collaboration, as well as independent and creative idea-generation.
What's next for Nature Walk
Nature Walk will be ported to mobile applications. This will provide a more convenient way for users to use the application on a day-to-day basis. If given the opportunity, this application could be partnered with bigger organizations to sponsor more community clean up events. Nature Walk could also branch out to similar areas like wildlife conservation, preservation of national parks, and new ways to protect our environment.
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