Inspiration
We are four roommates, and we love each other - except for when it comes to taking out the trash. We figured that a major point of conflict between us is about who takes the trash out, or passive aggressiveness over not taking out the trash. If only there was a system to synchronize and monitor it...
What it does
It's a simple trash notification app. Each roommate scores points based on the number of times they have taken out the trash. The app also shows when the last time the trash was taken out was. Once a roommate takes the trash out, they just have to click a button that says "I have taken out the trash". That roommate scores one point for doing so and the last time date is updated to today's date.
How I built it
Since all of us use android devices, I thought of building an android app for just the four of us. I used Android Studio and Amazon Web Services for backend. I used AWS Cognito for setting up the roommate user pool so that the app is restricted to the four of us and I used AWS S3 services to store the score and date.
Challenges I ran into
Since I'm not good at Android or Java development, the programming took a little getting used to. Android tends to be unpredictable, I've discovered. Something that works now won't work later. Since it was my first time integrating a backend (cloud and user sign in) to android, I came across a lot of challenges trying to get it to work. I still have loads of obstacles to overcome because S3 services is not working properly yet. There was also a problem where internet was slow and my computer kept crashing and the IDE was slow. Also, since I was working solo and this was my first hackathon, I had to take the whole responsibility upon myself, and I may have wasted a lot of time by not having a proper Plan of Action.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I'm proud of myself that I got this far despite being so frustrated. I am glad that I got some part of this app to work. I thought I would give up on android development since I'm a C++ developer and Android seemed to be a whole other scary domain, but I think I did well.
What I learned
First - Never give up! Second - Have expert searching skills, Third - Don't be scared of taking up anything new, Fourth - Android needs a lot of getting used to, Fifth - AWS is cool, Sixth - Hackathons are fun!
What's next for TrashTalk
- Fix the current state of the app (I should be done with that soon!)
- I wanted to try to implement push notifications, so that
- The app suggests who should take out the trash next and reminds that user
- The app must give a warning if the trash hasn't been taken out in X number of days where X is a threshold we will decide on
- Another button to allow a roommate to update the trash status for a previous date if they forgot to press the button on that day
- Responsibility deferring, although I don't know how to implement that
- Extend this to other chores in the house. Our second point of contention are the dishes :P
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