VaccinesInfo

This app uses Google Maps API and open source APIs to retrieve the list of vaccination centres and their appointments near the user's location.

Comment

Inspiration

COVID-19 was one of the biggest global pandemic, which affected everybody on the global scale. The vaccine for the COVID-19 virus took almost 2 years to arrive, and until then everybody was locked in their houses, and even still the virus impacted people, leading to millions of fatalities.

This app shows the list of vaccination centers and health centers in Ireland.

What it does

The app uses Google Maps API to show the list of counties in Ireland and the available health centers. It also shows the list of vaccination centers, appointments, vaccine dosage details, and other information in each county, and the route to get to that location. I've only covered Cork and Dublin counties due to the massive dataset.

How we built it

The app is an iOS SwiftUI application using Google Firebase Auth SDK, and HSE-inspired datasets to get information regarding health centers and vaccination centers. The project uses Google Maps API to depict the map and subsequently the data, such as their coordinates, driving route from current location. The current location has been virtually added to get a more realistic approach and understanding to be in Ireland. For instance, the user who would be accessing the app could be in the United States, hence will not be able to simulate the driving route from the US to Ireland.

Challenges we ran into

For the starters, it was very hard to meet the deadline, as I had multiple ideas for this project, but with my current work schedule it was very hard to keep up with all my ideas. Also, configuring the API and SDK was a good learning experience, since configuring Google Maps API with SwiftUI was a little sticky situation. I had initially installed all of my packages using Swift Package Manager, and later on, in the project production, I observed that Google Maps SDK can only be installed using Cocoapods. Hence I had to reinstall everything back to using Cocoapods. Another issue was Google Maps SDK for iOS apparently doesn't work with the ARM Apple Silicon Macs simulators, and the error for this thrown was out of the world, hence it took me a couple of days to figure out that I needed to use my physical iPhone for execution. Overall it was a really good experience to learn so much about Google Maps API.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Able to submit this project right on time, and the learning experience with Google Maps API was very interesting and got me hooked up every day after work.

What we learned

Creating a MVP before the deadline with some cool functionalities for a beginner

What's next for VaccinesInfo

Well, I had a tons of ideas in my head for this project, and I was able to submit only a few. However going on, with my free GCP subscription, I would be integrating other APIs such as the Roads API, and the translation API for adopting multiple languages.

I also wanted to integrate the application with google assistant to give instant updates regarding vaccination centers and even traffic details.

Share this project:

Updates