Side Quest

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Inspiration

Have you guys heard of or experienced the Seattle Freeze? Have you ever experienced moving to a new place or new city without knowing anyone there? Do you find it difficult to find a group that shares your interest?

That’s me (Sherwin) when I moved to Seattle from China. All my friends are now in a different time zone and I felt like an outsider. I don’t know what events are happening around me, I have no clue what to do for fun on a sunny weekend.

That’s the story I share with so many students who move to America every year for college. All my friends were now in a different time zone and I felt like an outsider. I don’t know what events are happening around me. Most “fun” weekends will end up being me and my only other friend “having fun” going to the same shopping mall over and over again. After some research, I learned that I am not alone! A study from…. Shows that

A 2022 survey from PEMCO insurance showed “Almost half of Pacific Northwest residents don’t even want to talk briefly to people they don’t already know”

“About 40% of the poll’s 1,200 respondents in Washington and Oregon said it’s not important for them to make new friends”

”And, even when you do somehow go through the effort of finding people to hang out with, one of the biggest challenges you’re faced with is figuring out what to do?

All these events: Sea-Fair, Seattle Food Walks, Concerts, Festivals can be difficult to find if you don’t know where to look. It’s even harder for people that are new to the country to learn about these events. And, when you do see these events, how do you know which ones to go to? All that information can be overwhelming, tyranny of choice and decision fatigue is real. *We want to remove these barriers of access by making the choices personalized and easy to make. *

Inspired by applications like Facebook, All Trails, Be-Real and Snapchat, SideQuest seeks to make it easier to find out what to do in your city, all while connecting you with friends to improve both individual and community wellness.

Our Goals

To help users explore their city and to incentivize the usage of green transportation methods while they’re at it.
To help users make friends who are involved in the same activities and find community.
To help users be more mindful in the activities they’re doing, prompting them to live in the moment.
To help users get OUTSIDE and connect with local businesses and natural areas!
To decrease barriers to access and connection, improving social determinants of health through providing a personalized adventure plan.

Key Features

When users open the app for the first time, they’re guided to a page that allows them to select their interests, their location, how much they want to spend and the distance they want to travel. Your preferences changed? No worries, you can always add and update later.

Private Mode (AKA: Batman mode): Your profile is visible to only You. When you sign up for events, no one can see that you’re going and you can’t see who else is going. This is for the people who want to explore events on their own.

Friends Mode: Your profile is visible to only those which you’ve friended. When you sign up for events, only these people can see that you’re going, and you’ll be able to see their names if they’re going. In friends mode, your group also has the opportunity to create events so you can meet-up and maintain those awesome adult friendships.

Public Mode: Your profile is visible to everyone. When you sign up for events, everyone who is also on public mode can see that you’re going. You can see all the other people who have public accounts that are attending. You can message each other, learn about each other’s interests, spurring even more hangouts.

Explore Page: Allows you to find larger events like concerts, firework shows, and even small events like a dance off. The key is that the user doesn’t necessarily already know other people there like in the groups. It allows the user to explore on their own. To aid with this, there are also additional filters that help the user find events that cater to all their needs. Over time the app learns the user’s interests and begins to recommend events the user is more likely to be interested in.

_Once you’ve decided your profile preferences, you’ll be able to see a list of 10 events in your area that were suggested based off your interests and location preferences. These events are posted by verified local businesses, organizations and parks, inspiring you to engage with your city. They range from meet-ups and conventions to volunteering opportunities and promotions. There will be a blurb talking about the event, with information on location, timing and what to bring. _

Group Page: The Groups page is available in Friends and Public Mode. In Friends mode, events created by your friends will only be shown. In Public mode, events created by your friends will be shown as well as events shared by individuals who are parts of the communities that you are involved in, and are located nearby.

Map Page: It plots all the events on a map and gives you transportation options.

Quest Diary: They are like living adventures logs, you have the option to add a photo and a blurb about your experiences that you can revisit anytime. It’s like a living diary to keep track of your adventures and see all the SideQuests you’ve taken. It’s an exercise in being fully present in the moment and a great way to see what you’ve been up to throughout the year.

Safety Features: In order to make a public post, users will need to be verified by submitting their ID. When creating their event they can select the demographics of their audience, age, gender, school, location etc. to maintain safety.

How we built it

The app is built in Kotlin using Android Studio.

Challenges we ran into

Going into the project, we had no background in writing Kotlin or developing android, and the learning curve ended up being much steeper than we originally thought. The week leading up to dubhacks was spent learning basic Kotlin, and watching Android tutorials, but those lessons ended up being insufficient when it came to developing and application for real. Implementing the google maps AI proved challenging due to config errors and a lack of understanding of Google Developer. Then, upon trying to actually build the UI, we discovered that Jetpack Compose was our best shot at building it, which was challenging to learn on the spot. Finally, we tried to avoid connecting a database for simplicity's sake, but ended up eventually caving and fighting with firebase to store data.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Using creative UI/UX solutions to combat "doomscrolling"
Challenging ourselves with something we haven't learned before (App development)
Applying what we learned in class about wellness into tech.

What we learned

We learned to trust on each other and face the challenge together. We walked into this without a lot of prior knowledge for App Dev but we trusted each other and powered thru. We learned that having fun with your friends when facing a challenge together is one of the best experience you can have in college.