PatriotGo – Carpooling Done Easy, Safe, and Cost-Neutral

A feature-rich carooling app for George Mason University students, done as part of the PatriotHacks hackathon.

Inspiration

3/4 of our team are George Mason University students and have experienced firsthand the challenges of commuting sustainably while ensuring students can get to campus on time.
There was no existing solution to maintain cost-neutrality for student ridesharing.
We wanted to help students connect socially, making it easier to find people to carpool with while also reducing carbon emissions.

PatriotGo makes carpooling easy, safe, and cost-neutral.
Students can create custom preferences for who they carpool with (e.g., by major, year, or schedule) to encourage social connections alongside commuting.
Offers location-based ride matching, so students quickly find rides that suit their schedules and neighborhoods.
Ensures fair ride sharing: drivers give rides without profit, riders contribute if they can’t drive.
Implements a credit system: students can compensate peers by driving themselves to unlock credits or pay for parts of a ride (gas and parking compensation).

Front End: Built with ExpoGo with react, optimized for mobile use accross any OS.
Back End:
- AWS Relational Database Service (RDS) with PostgreSQL to store user info.
- DynamoDB (planned) for chat interfaces between riders and drivers.
- AWS Cognito for secure authentication with George Mason University IDs.
- AWS Lambda functions to process interactions, sessions, and ride matching.

Integrating ExpoGo with AWS was difficult.
Navigating Microsoft authentication to ensure accounts worked and avoided auth errors (first time coding authentication protocols).
Implementing real-time DynamoDB communications.
Navigating page routing with React—redirects after authentication were a major pain point.

Built a working MVP with essential ride posting and searching functionality.
Implemented location-based queries for efficient ride matching.
Leveraged AWS 24/7 support to keep services reliable.
App is deployable to any phone OS.
Designed a simple, minimal UI in Mason colors.
Ensured a credit system to maintain cost neutrality.
Planned chat feature for social connection (not yet implemented).

Building student-focused apps requires understanding real user needs, not just technical features.
AWS services like RDS, Lambda, and Cognito are powerful but require careful planning to scale and integrate.
Cost-neutrality and social matching can be a strong differentiator in niche apps like campus carpools.
Prioritizing UI simplicity dramatically improves user adoption.

Launch full chat/messaging feature to connect riders and drivers.
Implement ride history, ratings, and gamification to reward sustainable commuting.
Expand preference options for rides, including schedules and interests.
Scale to support more campuses while keeping the platform easy, safe, and cost-neutral.