PhillyMiles

PhillyMiles incentives family and friends to walk to their destinations rather than using public transportation or a personal vehicle, by turning being active into a fun and colorful competition

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Inspiration

Growing up my family wasn't always the most active but after a recent health scare my father had, we decided to change our family culture. We began eating healthier and eating less. We also created a family gym night where we would jog to the beach and do workouts there. My father downloaded a health app so he could track how many steps he took per day. To my surprise, this completely changed his daily routine. He began walking to work, rather than using his car. Every Sunday he would get up early and walk to church whenever the weather was favorable. He began using his car less and less until he only ever touched it when he had a long distance to travel. The reason for this drastic change was his competitive nature and drive to beat his weekly number of steps and distance walked. Not only was this great for his health, but it was wonderful for the environment. If could take advantage of this competitive nature in people and drive the usage of cars down, I could do wonders for the environment.

What is PhillyMiles

PhillyMiles allows members of a community, family, friend group, or organization to create a group, easily, and allow others with the access code to join in. The app counts the number of steps of each user throughout the day and ranks them on a colorful list. This process is done automatically and seamlessly without any input from the user. Whoever is in first play gets to change their color and the color of others. The ranking system is done automatically and with beautiful Philly-centric animations

How I built it

We built PhillyMiles using Android Studio for the front end and firebase to handle backend server-side processes. We also used ms paint3d for the animation assets.

Challenges I ran into

I faced a great challenge getting the app to count the steps and record them accurately and upload the data to the server seamlessly. I tried to remove the user as much as possible from the actual counting and uploading process to make the app as simple as possible

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

  1. I learned how to access sensor data within android smartphones
  2. A Greater understanding of the Android Studio IDE
  3. The design and animations used in the application

What I learned

  1. How to handle backend services
  2. Control and manipulate sensor data(accelerometer)
  3. How to animate static views in an android UI

What's next for PhillyMiles

  1. We are currently in the process of reviewing the app for the play store.
  2. Once that is done we plan to create an IOS version of our app, before uploading it to the IOS App store.
  3. We also plan to add to the number of perks available for 1st,2nd and 3rd place.
  4. And also give the group admin more control over the members in the group.
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