Inspiration
Pāku was inspired by one of the most frustrating parts of our daily routine, parking. Many of us drive to work and school and are constantly aggravated by the inefficiency of the the current system.
What it does
From the perspective of the app user, our system allows for hassle free payment and easily finding available parking spots. From the perspective of parking lot managers, our product allows them to monitor their lot and adjust pricing according to demand.
How we built it
Our device took advantage of some of the functionalities of the Estimote Beacon. The Beacon allows for users with our beacon enabled app to be pushed a message asking whether they want to park. When they confirm, our android app will alert the server of their unique user ID and which parking spot they are parked in. The server creates an initial time stamp and waits for the user to return. Up on returning, the user will back out of the parking spot triggering a proximity sensor that informs the server. The server now has two time stamps with which it can calculate the parking fee and charge the user.
Challenges we ran into
One of our main challenges we ran into was interfacing with the Beacon. The Beacon was very different from the other tech we have worked with and it was both exciting and challenging to work with.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are really proud that we were able to pull our idea together in less than 36 hours. It was the first time our group had worked together and there were many obstacles we had to overcome as a team.
What we learned
Some of the things we learned were to work under severe time constraints and to operate as a team to quickly produce a strong product.
What's next for Paku
Paku hopes to expand its functionalities to include features such as being able to find your car, finding the closest available parking spot, dynamic pricing algorithms, and data analytics for the parking lot managers
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