Inspiration
It has become the latest trend to count your steps, track your exercise and to stay healthy! Fitbit, a device for the wrist, does that for you. But, how about tracking the amount of energy you're expending as well as your carbon footprint? We wanted to create an application that lets you monitor how much carbon you're emitting into the world, and allow you to take this knowledge and work towards reducing your carbon footprint by planting a tree! But, you won't be in this endeavour alone. Just like Fitbit, Treebit allows you to connect, compare and challenge all your friends all in an effort to take action and reduce your carbon emission.
How it works
Treebit requires the user to log-in with a Google+ or Facebook account in order to connect the user with their friends. Once on the main page, there are a list of common things that you can click to see how much they contribute to your carbon footprint. The amount of carbon emitted as a result of those actions is shown at the bottom of the screen. Treebit also allows you to see how you are ranked amongst your friends. If you would like to reduce the impact of your carbon footprint and potentially bump yourself up one spot in your ranking, you can buy a tree and prove to your friends that you care about the environment!
Challenges I ran into
Finding out ways to calculate how some of the things affected your carbon footprint was difficult in our time frame, as there were tons of factors involved in each of them. Given our time limit, we were able to configure the amount of carbon released depending on the distance travelled by a car.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
Considering that half of our team had no experience in developing or designing an application, we were able to come up with an idea and bring it to life (almost!).
What I learned
Through building Treebit, we learned about the process of making an application using Android Studio, brushed up on our Photoshop skills, and gained a lot of knowledge on how we could reduce our carbon footprint!
What's next for Treebit
Setting goals and creating daily and weekly challenges with friends are some of the things we hope to include to Treebit, as building a sense of community, while adding some friendly competition is always rewarding! We're also looking forward to adding a progression graph, where users can track their progress and feel motivated or compelled to make a difference!
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