Inspiration
When we were brainstorming ideas for our project, we started talking about how expensive Uber and gas prices are. Then, that was when the idea came to us. We realized we could make a carpooling app the matches people going the same destination. This way, people can save money and reduce their carbon footprint.
What it does
You can make requests for rides, and if your on the way for someone, then they can reach out to you and offer a ride.
How we built it
We used SwiftUI and Xcode to develop the front end functionalities of our app. Some of the front end functionalities include the profile page, a page that displayed other people’s ride requests, and a pop up form to submit your own ride requests. In addition, we used Firebase cloud as our backend and created a schema for the request object. The schema included several elements, including the users current location, where they are trying to go, and what time they want to leave.
Challenges we ran into
One challenge we ran into was brainstorming. For most of us, it was our first time in a hackathon, and brainstorming was especially difficult. It by 5pm the first day, we still didn't have an idea. It was really frustrating and concerning, because we questioned whether we would even have time to finish a project. Fortunately, the idea just came to us, and everything was a much smoother process. We realized that we shouldn't stress too much about our project, and just go with the flow. Everything eventually came together, and it gives us a lot more confidence going forward for future hackathons.
What's next for myRidePal
Right now, the app is made so that you can offer rides to anyone. However, we believe that people can feel uncomfortable carpooling with random people. We want to avoid that concern by catering the app to college students. Basically, you would only be able to help to see ride requests from other students who go to the same college as you. This is more practical because college students are usually going to the same places for lecture, exams, and so on. So for example, if two college students live in the same apartment complex and are going to the same lecture hall, one of the students can submit a ride request, and once the other student sees it, he can offer a ride if he has one.
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