TRAK COVID-19

TRAK COVID-19 ensures users have up-to-date information regarding the pandemic, including but not limited to nearby testing sites and crucial worldwide news.

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TRAK COVID-19

Keeping Communities INFORMED and SAFE

Everything from information on testing centers, signs, symptoms, prevention tactics and more.

Inspiration

Watching the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. soar, we as a team were devastated. And as the number of confirmed cases and deaths climb, we as the American public are left with a multitude of news sources (both fake and real) to sift through… It even reaches a point where it becomes difficult to figure out what we need to be informed, stay safe, and help our communities. Our team believes these issues have hindered the community’s ability to reduce hysteria and obtain the correct essential resources necessary to stay safe during this pandemic. Thus, we created TRAK COVID-19 as a public resource to empower individuals to become self-aware of their role in staying informed and containing the spread of COVID-19.

What it does

During these trying times, it’s essential for us to stay informed about the latest updates to the COVID-19 crisis. Our iOS application tackles issues of misinformation by gathering data on testing centers and current informational sources to provide users with the most reliable sources during this pandemic. This easy-to-use mobile app makes it possible for several million iOS users to quickly find updates on where to get tested within their city, and how they can help others in their community.

How we built it

XCode, Swift, Mapkit API, Hope <3

Challenges we ran into

Due to social distancing orders, our team has had to utilize Zoom for every aspect of this project. As first time iOS developers, being separated by several county lines, we have overcome tremendous obstacles in dealing with unreliable internet connections, nearly exhausted devices, and a few computer meltdowns in order to make this device. Through it all, including some of the most challenging features of assigning links to certain buttons, we have successfully created a product that we hope can be made accessible to a nationwide community. In terms of building the app, it was most difficult trying to find ways to tie in the MapKit (which was pre-installed to XCode) with the features we had hoped to include for this project, like showing nearby testing centers based on where the individual is located. With perseverance, our team was able to work out the bugs and successfully produce a map that can help users find nearby locations where they can get tested.

What we learned

Beginners to the world of iOS development, not only were we able to successfully develop an app that dealt with the emerging situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, but we were also able to set a good example for a growing community of people transitioning to online solutions. As colleges and workplaces transition to virtual spaces, our team has successfully overcome several challenges in spite of social distancing orders to develop an app that…. -Accesses several credible online institutions -Utilizes a map feature to locate nearby testing centers at the touch of a button.

What's next for TRAK COVID-19

In the future, we hope to improve TRAK COVID-19 by implementing a new feature that would allow users to anonymously track their symptoms. This would help provide additional data to monitor the spread of COVID-19 relative to the user’s area and on a national level.

With this in mind, we hope that TRAK COVID-19 will be accessible to all iOS users for free! And in the best interests of the worldwide community, we look forward to mobilizing this application so that it can be accessed across several platforms (including devices that do not operate on iOS).

Now, more than ever, it is our responsibility as hackers and native Earth-goers to join forces to contain the spread of COVID-19! :)

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