WeClean

Adding a cleanup location on WeClean

Inspiration

The inspiration for this project comes from my town back in New York. There was an environmental committee in my town that would create projects and clean-ups, where the community can work together to increase sustainability in the community. An example of this, would be every month EcoPel (the environmental committee) would have a town clean up where people gather and go to different places around town to pick up garbage. Our inspiration for the project came from this committee and kinds of environmental sustainable events that they held.

What it does

Our site increases transparency across a community, and allows for increased collaboration to help the environment at all times. Our site uses google maps, and allows users to drop a pin on the map at a spot in the area where there is a lot of garbage, and needs cleaning up. Dropping a pin then prompts the user to input their name and date of when they plan to clean to help clean it up. This information, as well as the location of the marker will then show up in a data table on the website, so that other users can see when others in the community are going to clean up areas of their town/city.

How I built it

We used the Google Firebase to create a webpage online. We then used the Google Maps API to get google maps on our webpage. We then used HTML, javascript and CSS to change the API to allow popups and contact forms directly on the map. We also changed the formatting of the webpage, and allowed the data inputted by the user to be shown on the website data table for other users to see.

Challenges I ran into

The biggest challenge we ran into was getting a good idea for our project. We originally had a different idea, which we worked on for 5-6 hours, and then had to scratch it because of technical difficulties. So we had a smaller amount of time to implement this project and get it to the level that we wanted it to be at. Other difficulties we faced as a group were changing features of the Google Maps API, as none of us have used it before.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

As a group I'm proud that we were able to quickly change paths and come up with something new, with time not being on our side. We all stayed up late working really hard, and I'm proud of the amount of work everyone put in, and the amount of passion everyone showed towards the project. I'm also proud of our group's idea, as we think the environment is a huge concern in today's world, and we all want to make a difference.

What I learned

I learned how to use the Google Maps API, as well as the Google Firebase. We all got more comfortable coding in HTML, CSS and javascript, as those were not our strongest languages coming into the project. We also learned how to divvy up the work more efficiently, so that we can achieve goals quicker.

What's next for WeClean

WeClean still has much potential to grow as an idea, and also grow in terms of its development. Some ideas in the future we have as a group would be to make WeClean into an app, so that people on their mobiles can access it quicker. We could also create an account/points system in the future, to incentive people to clean more, as well as have accounts for increased security.