Inspiration
Being bored is awful. Let Uber take you somewhere interesting!
What does Uber Adventure do?
Uber Adventure is a mobile webapp takes your current location and returns a cool place you can reach with Uber given a certain amount of money (defaulted at $7). For the best experience please use this app on your phone web browser!
How I built Uber Adventure
I used the web development framework Flask, the Uber API, and the Yelp API to build this webapp. First, I use Uber's price scheme to determine how far (in meters) $x can take you with Uber. Second, I determine which Yelp destinations fall within the radius determined earlier that have a rating above 3.5 and fall into categories of interesting things (dancing, hiking, jazz clubs, etc.) Finally, I randomly select one of these destinations and present it to the user with a "request ride" deep link button that leads to the Uber app with all the trip information already filled in.
Challenges I ran into
The Uber API was pretty straightforward, but the Yelp API has a number of limitations that I found hard to get around. For example, the Yelp API does not provide open hours for the destinations it returns, which would have been useful in Uber Adventure. On a better note, HTML5 has a really useful geolocation feature that made finding the user's location really easy!
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
Making a fully working mobile webapp that does something fun and useful!
2 things I learnt:
Only do the first idea you think of if you can't think of any more ideas. The idea I had before Uber Adventure was really boring (it compared the time spent with the distance travelled on a given user's past Uber rides). Thinking of a good idea took some time that I otherwise would have liked to have spent coding, but it was worth it!
Be fearless even though you started the weekend without a team and without a plan. Before the hackathon started, I lightly considered the idea of not showing up at all! I didn't have a team to work with, and I didn't have any idea of what I wanted to build. However, once I arrived I realized how many opportunities Cal Hacks offered (beyond free socks), and got to work making something cool.
Potential future features of Uber Adventure
Handle requests asynchronously with workers and display a loading screen while a request is being served.
Store requests made in a database and make use of that information somehow!
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.