Inspiration
Walking outside on a cold day is not fun, especially when you don’t know your way around campus. With how big the campus is, and how confusing the tunnel and bridge system is, many freshmen are forced to walk outside in the snow.
What it does
UB Walkin’ will take a starting location and ending location as input, and then it will compute the shortest indoor route between the two buildings. It will also provide notes to the user about where the tunnels and bridges are.
How we built it
This app was built in python. It uses Dijkstra’s Algorithm to calculate the shortest path. The graph was created using a map of UB’s North Campus. The front end shows a map of UB using the Google Maps API and was created using python flask.
Challenges we ran into
The frontend was a challenging portion considering it was using the Google Maps API, and getting everything to display properly on a website is always a challenge. For the backend, we had to create the graph of UB manually. This meant noting the location and connections for each building in a cvs file that could be read when the program starts.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
The backend works perfectly and it always finds the shortest route. We also had time to implement a graph that provides faster routes, but at the expense of needing to travel outside.
What we learned
Frontend development is hard, but we did successfully learn the Google Maps API. We also learned how to use routing in python flask to perform different actions based on whether the user has sent a post or get request and display different HTML using templates accordingly.
What's next for UB Walkin’
The next step for UB Walk-in’ is to expand this to be used inside of buildings, so you can find a specific room number or a specific tunnel or bridge. This would require mapping every building, which could not be done in 24 hours.
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