Sample Conversation With Textination
Sample Conversation Textination

Inspiration

When Shayan and Alishan came from a different university to attend the deltahacks competition, the first thing that we tried to do was connect them to the wifi so we could get started on our hack, however they had issues connecting to the internet. They were also both over their data plans, so we couldn't hotspot. This catalyzed a thought process about all the times that we need an internet connection but aren't able to access it and we identified a widespread problem with people who need directions but are out of data, and so can't access the internet to find them out. Furthermore, the low income and homeless population may not have the luxury of a data plan, yet need a directions service. This is where Textination came in.

What it does

Textination acts as a text chatbot that engages in an interactive conversation with the user to get them where they need to go, without the use of the internet. The user first texts Textination their current location and their desired destination, Textination then utilizes a cloud dataset, currently accessed through a google maps API, that finds the optimal route towards your destination and texts you back the directions that you take to get there.

How we built it

Coded using python via Pythonanywhere. Implemented various API's such as Twilio, Googlemaps, Flask, and Geopy.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge that we ran into is deciding on which language to use in order to manipulate API's. We ended up choosing python because of its ease of use with the data, and the ability to stack API's. Furthermore, It allows Textination to switch out of databases and API's easily which can give users the most up to date and greatest breadth of data
Only one of our teammates had substantial coding experience, the rest of us were business students with minimum programming experience. We worked around this by working towards our strengths and dividing up the work to maximize efficiency

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Managing to successfully run the flask server and Twilio API working, with no previous experience
Stacking 4 API's with no previous stacking experience
Performing a quality needs assessment and detailed research into relevant data; leveraging primary and secondary research sources

What we learned

How to successfully bind a server to an API
How to successfully program a back-end web app
Effective brainstorming for problems to social issues

What's next for Textination - SMS Directions Chat Bot

in the future, we want to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify areas that are travelled to more often by the most people, and optimize our program's webscraping for those areas to get information to the user faster
We will also add transit directions and bus timings into Textination