Where is my Bus?

Inspiration

We as students have all missed busses while looking for directions on Google Maps. With a voice assistant, that crucial two minutes can be used to run over to that bus stop and catch that bus.

What it does

We have built a voice assistant to bring Translink to Google Home devices, in hopes of making Vancouver students and commuters' lives easier. Simply ask, "Ok Google, when is my next bus coming?" to get real-time data on your next buses. Set up once, catch the bus every time after.

How I built it

We learned about Google Actions (the voice equivalent of apps) through several tutorials, and attempted to link Translink's API to our system. As we came in with no knowledge of how to build anything related to voice, the majority of our time was spent learning about the process. We then split into a backend and API team for the remainder of our project time. The project is written in Javascript, and integrated with Google's DialogFlow platform.

Challenges I ran into

We spent a good amount of time on learning before we were confident enough to build something on our own. Thankfully, the tutorials on Google were well-designed; it gave us the tools we needed to succeed in our project. Obtaining data from Translink was relatively straightforward, but we found some difficulties in manipulating JSON objects in Javascript initially as well. The amount of time we took on learning our knowledge background was very useful, but also left us with not enough time to integrate the backend with our APIs.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Our app is coming together, and seeing it go from zero to one was quite the journey!

What I learned

Diving into a new domain with no initial knowledge gives us the confidence to tackle bigger problems in the near future.

What's next for Where is my Bus

Further user customizations, completion of API and backend linking, and hopefully a launch to benefit Vancouverites in the near future!