Inspiration
Often we are not aware of many community initiatives because of which we miss a valuable chance to contribute our bit to the society. Also for people who are being benefitted by those initiatives are unaware of them. It was experienced by one of our teammates personally. In her society, there is a community fridge set up for people to donate their food (Sometimes excess food which might have gone to waste) and anybody who needs that food can take it and whatever amount of it but it wasn't doing so much good because people were unaware of the fridge set up. Socially is here to close this gap and is bringing people in society closer and is creating a balance in society.
What it does
This app provides an interface for users to locate and use social fridges with relative ease. It puts community fridges on the map,enabling the users to see its location as well the status of food packets present in them.So that those who might need food can get it from the nearest fridge, and those who want to donate can donate to the fridge where there is no food or less food packets. There is a map which shows the current location of the users and also all the fridges that are nearest to them. Whenever there is close to no food packets (2-3) the app users who are registered with us receive a notification(email) to ask them if they want to donate food. The app allows users to check how much food is present in the fridge. There is also one app interface on the user's side to update the app whenever they add something to the fridge or take something from it. We are giving people points for every donation they make based on which, badges will be provided to them as well as a place on our app's hall of fame to give honour to their gestures. When users earn a certain number of badges, they might be rewarded.
How I built it
We built it using android studio,Java, google maps API, google firebase and sqlite. We procured google maps API key , built those maps features. Designed log in/register and authentication using firebase. We used sqlite to maintain the database of fridge side interface we are using that information and integrated it with our maps to update the food packets status in the fridge. The notification feature that we thought of building is still underworking. We used adobe xd to make the UI more attractive.We used many aspects of googleMaps' API like current location, markers, we even tried drawing a route. We are working on ranking and points awarding system , we tried many things to run them at the end it was just not working
Challenges I ran into
We are novices and haven't worked with android ever before this was our first time, so at first it was very challenging we spent lots of time in building basics. The major challenge was displaying the number of food packets, we are not that much experienced with backend but at the end somehow we managed it. Working with sqlite was a herculean task for us . Sometimes our android studio didn't work and we remained stuck. The major challenge was not knowing when to give up .
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We are very proud of displaying the number of food packets display in the maps.Also we are proud of that we worked with an entirely new tech stack for us on a idea like this
What I learned
What we learned is how to work as a good team , learnt patience and most importantly ANDROID
What's next for Socially
We want to automate the packet sensing mechanism by using camera and IOT. We will work on notifications. Also, the socially model is not only limited to community fridges, it can also work for watering trees planted by others, used for donation of books, clothes and many such community initiatives can come under socially and people can then flaunt their socially ranks proudly.
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