PikkupMe

Inspiration

The app focusses on connecting students so they can share rides to the grocery store or airport(for examples). There was an actual need for this at the buses went to the grocery store only on weekends and there were no good public transport facilities to the airport. I have seen a lot of students asking to share a ride to the airport on facebook and whatsapp groups. Thats why we set out to develop a reliable and safe solution to the same.

What it does

If a student is driving to the grocery store or the airport or any other place, then the student posts that on the webpage. When a students posts a ride request for the same, the algorithm does some magic and matches students with rides and notifies them.

How we built it

Java and Jersey server for the backend. MongoDB running on mLab as the DB. AngularJs for the frontend. TwilioAPI for messaging. UberAPI for suggesting uber ride sharing.

Challenges we ran into

Deploying the app to tomcat on ubuntu 14.04 running on DigitalOcean droplet. Setting up the hosting and domain. Connecting different APIs and frameworks through RESTful services. Java compatibility issues. Time. Design decisions. UX decisions.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Learning and getting AngularJS to work in 24 hours. A fully functional prototype build in under 24 hours. To finally come up with a solution for the problem.

What we learned

Learnt how to deploy the app on droplet. Learnt how to manage time. Learnt to work as a team.

What's next for PikkupMe

Taking it to the other universities and college towns where this will be really helpful. Provide services like OAuth and track routes using Google Maps.

Built With

• angular.js
• java
• jersey
• mongodb
• rest
• twilio
• uber