Greenspace Finder

Inspiration

We were inspired by recent and personal events, namely, the end of the COVID-19 lockdown slowly approaching and the lifting of restrictions. What we have on our hands right now are many people who have simply been indoors for far too long. Our project, Greenspace Finder sets to overcome this issue, making sure that trails and parks are populated once more when we can freely go outside again, letting the fresh air and natural scenery rejuvenate the body. The purpose of our project is to give people a wide variety of trails and parks in their local area and leave their feedback

What it does

Greenspace Finder lets users stuck indoors make up their mind when searching for a natural place with search engines and filters that assist in picking the right place for them. Reviews can also be made at visited locations so that users can share their experience with other hikers. This ultimately archives our goal of promoting the use of public spaces, and making people go outside.

How we built it

We used both HTML, CSS, and JavaScript when creating the website, and used data from the Ontario Trail Network

Challenges we ran into

Our group ran into numerous obstacles when it came to developing Greenspace Finder. First we had difficulty when It came to coming up with hackathon ideas. We went through the pros and cons of many ideas before settling with the idea of a website that assisted in finding greenspaces. Another issue we encountered was finding the right resources when developing our website. One example was finding a way to visually represent parks and trails to the user based on their location. We originally attempted to use an API from an already existing mapping service, but in the end, we chose to adapt and embed it instead. Our final challenge was the time limit, we initially planned to add further features but we were unable to implement some in the end due to time limits.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

For most of us, this was our very first hackathon and being able to put together a functioning project felt like an achievement in itself. Through this hackathon we learned many experiences and knowledge that will definitely help us in future events.

What we learned

With just over a day to complete our project, we had to learn how to prioritize what tasks we had to do first. As well, we were able to appreciate each other’s strengths and learn from each other while splitting up tasks to perform. In future Hackathons, we should work towards

What's next for Greenspace Finder

We plan to expand the range of Greenspace Finder to all the trails and parks in Canada so that it can be used nationwide. Another feature we have planned is the ability to login or sign up on the website with an account to improve the locations recommended to the user.