Safe Roads

Making roads safer while not behind the wheel.

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Inspiration

Safe Roads was inspired by events I have seen on the road and keeping the roads as safe as possible. Accidents and other incidents are inevitable when it comes to driving on the road. This is because not everybody is a professional driver. With this being said, there are times when the police are needed, but some people might struggle with contacting them. This could be because they are a mute person, anxious person, disabled person, or they are just uncomfortable with phone calls. Safe Roads makes it easier for these people or any other person to make the roads safer by reporting incidents.

What it does

Safe Roads, while it is not a fully working app that is ready to be launched on the app store, is an app that allows for people who are unable to or uncomfortable talking on the phone to contact the police and report an incident on the road. It first asks a series of questions that ensures the user is not driving a vehicle and determines the location of the user so that a nearby police station can be contacted.

How I built it

Safe Roads was created using Java through repl.it and graphically designed using Figma. To get the "app" working itself, repl.it was used to code it. I chose repl.it because I have worked with it before, it is one of the only IDE's that I have access to on a Chromebook, and I knew that repl.it allowed for GUI's, which was used to help display the working "app." Figma was used to help display my idea of how the app would look once it was on the app store and on a user's phone.

Challenges I ran into

Some challenges that I ran into with Safe Roads was that allow repl.it is a browser-friendly IDE, it is slow in processing information. This is because repl.it slows down when it is processing the code, which includes scanners, multiple packages, and displaying the GUIs so that they are able to be used. Also, another challenge that I faced is that I am only a Junior in high school who has only learned Java this school year and has had no experience with coding before. Finally, the last challenge I faced was that when determining the location of users via zip code, I did not have the time to check if what the user inputted was an actual zip code because there are millions of zip codes worldwide, and creating a list or an array of them would have not been the best use of my time.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Since I have only used and became familiar with Java this year, I am proud that I was actually able to code something on my own the runs and works to what I wanted.

What I learned

I learned much more about my capabilities when it comes to coding. Since most of my skills and knowledge comes from school, where we do not usually do projects like this one, it is nice to what I can really do on my own.

What's next for Safe Roads

To make Safe Roads a better app, I think I would advance it by making an array or list that checks to see if the zip code inputted is real and make more buttons that are not just about the road. For example, I think the app could possibly be expanded so that it can be used to contact police during situations like domestic abuse or kidnapping because those are incidents where contacting the police over the phone is not a possible option.

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