Inspiration
It's not a myth that everyone has at least lost something once at some time in their lives. What surprised us was that even though in this age of technology, there was no implementation of technology to help people find lost items. We decided to tackle this problem.
What it does
The app allows users to help people find lost items in the nearby community. The user has the ability to attach the post with a reward for the person who finds it for them. The app detects any beacons attached to said lost items. Users have the option to put a bounty on their lost item(s), so that anyone who finds it will be rewarded (i.e. a cash reward).
How we built it
Since we imagined people would use this mainly on the go, we decided to build an Android app. We used Estimote beacons in order to location the items. Each Estimote beacon is essentially a tiny computer that broadcasts radio signal. Your smartphone can pick up and interpret this signal. We used the Estimote SDK in order to communicate with the beacons from the app.
Challenges we ran into
We had a tough time trying to connect any phone with the Estimote beacon. We have never used the device before, so learning how to use the Estimote SDK in order to use the functionality of the beacon was a challenge.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are very proud to successfully integrate Estimote's SDK into our app. Being part of the developer community attempting to increase the potential power of beacon technology is something we are proud of. It was our first time deploying a successful server using mongoose, a framework that is connected with MongoDB, an open source database platform.
What we learned
In addition to being able to use beacon technology for a real life application for the first time, we also learned how to plan together as a team. We delegated tasks to specific people in the group to increase efficiency.
What's next for GoFindMe
GoFindMe can become an online web application that tracks people's post, so there's the option of looking at request posts using your home PC. Giving rewards to people who find lost items can be reinforced by implementing an option to use PayPal to reward people.
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