PitStop

Discover refined comfort along your journey

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Inspiration

Our team decided to brainstorm ideas related to the Adventure track since we agreed it was a very niche area to brainstorm ideas and implement an application tailored towards solving an issue.

What it does

Users interact with the PitStop app by selecting options from a dropdown menu, allowing the website to display relevant locations based on their current GPS coordinates. The app provides personalized break spot recommendations tailored to accessibility needs and family-friendly amenities. The user has the ability to input a location name and check mark whether they want the location to be LGBTQ+ friendly, wheel chair friendly, and if it's open all day. Through these inputs, our algorithm will provide the closest rest areas that are tailored towards the user's needs. Our second button "Find a Pit stop" allows the user to explicitly choose what type of stop they are looking for and whether it should be family-friendly, pet-friendly, etc.

Additionally, users can engage with a real-time chatbot to report road conditions, restroom cleanliness, safety concerns, and gas price updates.

How we built it

Our team began with brainstorming possible solutions for the 3 topics. We needed up building up on our own experiences of traveling with grandparents, young children, and people with disabilities. We talked to one of the mentors and she explained how it challenging for her partner who is transgender to find gender inclusive bathrooms especially on long drives. We were also inspired by the need for this technology in emergencies like human trafficking where individuals can know where phones are available to contact emergency services. We built two sides to our platform. One allows users to add a rest-area/bathroom and rate it with tags. The map allows for users to easily select a location and centers on the users current location. We save it to a database in MongoDB and then the other side is being able to retrieve rest-areas/bathrooms, filtering based on the users requirements. Our focus is not on distance but on how we can use user opinion to encourage a safe rest experience.

Challenges we ran into

Integrating the chatbot into our application as it was difficult to make the bot understand the user's messages and responses. We ran into a indefinite loop of errors where the bot only gives the default response regardless of what the user replies. Retrieving data from the Geolocation API depending on the user input

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of integrating the map into our application. Incorporating a drop down menu for our website and ensuring our UI looks visually appealing. Improving our soft skills in collaboration, delegating tasks, and ensuring all team members are on the same page.

What we learned

On the backend side, we learned about data ingestion into Mongodb and how to incorporate public APIs into our website. For frontend, we learned the basics of Figma and how to create a professional mockup design of our website to create a basic vision of

What's next for PitStop

  • Implement ratings for cleanliness/safety
  • Live updates on the current status of the specific rest area
  • Allow users to post comments/reviews on the area
  • Implement leaderboards for contributors
  • To enhance accessibility, the chatbot also offers translation support, helping non-English-speaking users navigate the platform with ease. Include stars as ratings for increases accessibility.
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