William and Maps

Inspiration

Getting around campus at the beginning was difficult at first and Google maps didn't give the most efficient routes (it ignores the woods). We decided to make our own app for exploring campus in a way that is easier and more efficient.

What it does

At the bottom of the application is a place to type in where you are and where you want to go. After typing in the names (autocomplete will try to help and tab will finish it), you can press the "Go!" button to generate a path.

How we built it

We split off early on in the project. Sam was in charge of backend things: primarily creating and navigating nodes. Jared was in charge of the frontend: making the buttons and rendering the nodes. We consulted each other at times, but primarily worked independently.

Challenges we ran into

1) Merging our sides together. Since we worked so independently of each other, we didn't really prepare to join our sides together. In order to make them work together, we had to heavily rewrite the code for the nodes.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

1) The navigation algorithm. We made it ourselves with no outside help. After having it working, we looked into other approaches and realized it is very similar to Dijkstra's algorithm.

2) The autocomplete feature

What we learned

We learned a lot about graph data structures as that is what the map really is. We learned how graphs are formed and how to navigate them.

What's next for William and Maps

Nothing is planned yet. Potentially, navigation of buildings could be added. This would allow users to find their way to specific rooms. There is also the possibility of mapping other college campus's.

Built With

• pygame
• python