Project TravelPet

Inspiration

Inspired by Tamagotchi like virtual pets and the success of programs like pokemon go in their effort to get people to move outside, TravelPet is a program that attempts to unify these ideas into a singular virtual companion whose health and lifestyle is determined by your attempts to lower your carbon footprint in transportation.

What it does

TravelPet tracks the user's velocity using accelerometers that can be found in the average modern-day mobile device to determine the user's mode of transport on trips. At speeds that are achieved by walking or biking TravelPet gives you in-app points that can be used to purchase various accessories and consumables that the pet can interact with. On the flipside, taking pollutive transport without doing something to mitigate it can take away points, making it harder to satisfy your pet.

How we built it

TravelPet is a full stack website that tracks our users speed as determined by an HTML5 api for mobile devices to add to a point total. We have incorporated an SQL database to store information unique to each user, allowing them to see how their pet's life changes due to their efforts.

Challenges we ran into

Mobile device accelerometers are difficult to access. They required an ssl certification on whatever website accessed them and require user input each time they are called in order for us to use the data they give.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're very proud of our user friendly nostalgic UI and our point tracking system, which allows us to determine the user's travel state without having them constantly update the website.

What we learned

We've learned some of the various uses for HTML5 api's and their benefits to motion tracking as well as the value of setting our goals on something simple, yet satisfying, in order to achieve the best product.

What's next for Project TravelPet

We plan to move Project TravelPet into an app, allowing us easier and better access to phone data in the future. As an app we can ensure that TravelPet is easy to use, reliable, and a fun way for everyone to engage more with lowering their carbon footprint.