Take You There!

An addition that should be made to the T app so that it is actually helpful!

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Inspiration

While trying to help my friend navigate through the Boston subway system also known as the T, I realized there was no app that gives you directions around the T accurately. Google Maps works sometimes, but there's never a guarantee if the directions you have received are correct, as Google Maps is not highly compatible with the Boston transit system. This frustrated me as a first-year student with little experience traveling around Boston.

What It Does

I decided to build an app that can help you navigate the Blue Line on the T. My app allows the user to input his or her starting station and his or her desired station, and it will output Inbound or Outbound towards which station (Bowdoin or Wonderland) and which station to get off at.

How I Built It

Using Code Studio, in JavaScript, I used the user-friendly design platform and drag-and-drop of blocks method of JavaScript to code the way the user interacts with the user interface. I eventually resorted to using solely JavaScript text after getting used to the way the language works syntactically and realizing it would be much quicker and useful for my purposes to type out code instead of dragging and dropping blocks. The user-friendly design platform transforms to html, css, and js automatically when the program file is zipped.

Challenges I Ran Into

I did not realize that the dropdown menus were not updating a variable I defined and used in my main function. It took myself and a friend Josh Rosenberg to realize that my variable was not updating, and we had to use the console to debug my program.

Accomplishments That I'm Proud Of

I successfully utilized "and", "or", and "not" statements to code my app, something I have not done before. Also, that my project runs successfully and gives legitimate directions!

What I Learned

I learned that it is very difficult to have a ton of conditionals for each from-station and each to-station, and that a larger code will involve hundreds of lines of code of simple conditionals.

What's Next For Take You There!

In the future, I am hoping that my app will expand fundamentally. I would like to include more lines, transfers, and more specific trains to take (i.e. on the Red Line if you must take Alewife/Ashmont or Alewife/Braintree and include Mattapan). I would also like those who run the T app and detours to input when there is a change in transit for X amount of time (i.e. Currently, you must take a shuttle transfer between Park Street and Kendall/MIT on weekends between now and October 21st. This should be inputted into the app and will give you directions how to transfer between those lines and other lines).

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