Inspiration
Since we take the train home on breaks, it's a long walk from the train back to campus, and it would have been convenient for us to take a ride with someone who happened to be going in the same direction. We thought that this could be implemented in an app, and people would save valuable time without needing to drive their own cars and add to carbon emissions.
What it does
Our program takes two parties, a driver and a walker, who have similar destinations and matches them up so that they can carpool together. While we save time for the walker, our algorithm would only match parties together if there is a small detour time as to minimize inconvenience for the driver. This project allows people to save time, money, and potentially make a new friend!
How we built it
Our backend was made using MongoDB and we had login authentication with Firebase. Our database kept track of people's locations and we used the Google Maps API to determine which drivers and riders to match up for a rideshare. It was built in a Next.js app, deployed with Vercel.
Challenges we ran into
The main problem we had was that the backend took a very long time, and we didn't have enough time to make a frontend that actually used all of the features we had. We also had many problems with merging, and lost important parts of a good, working copy as a result.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud of working on such a complicated project because we are all first years and this is our first hackathon. It was ambitious, but we were able to develop all of the backend, and just didn't have enough time to make a frontend for users to actually access it.
What we learned
We learned a lot about full stack development, and how difficult it is to combine many separate third-party services into a cohesive whole.
What's next for RideAssured
We made a website for this project because it was simpler to implement but ideally it would work best on a mobile app. If we were to continue working on the project, we would improve many of the features and patch up issues.
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