Inspiration
The story of Park Smart starting a few months ago in Melbourne, Australia. I was driving to the train station after a long day at university and I struggled to find parking spots. After I drove around aimlessly for about 45 minutes, I realized that something as small as not being able to find a parking spot can be needlessly frustrating for people. In that moment, I came up with the idea of Park Smart, a parking locator service based on the trade of information.
What it does
Park Smart utilizes crowd-sourcing to help people find parking spaces. When people leave a parking space, they can mark their spots as vacant in exchange for tokens. On the other hand, people trying to find parking can spend tokens to reveal car parks around their location. This reduces the amount of time it takes for people to find parking, especially in busy locations.
How we built it
We built this app with Android Studio while integrating the Google Maps API and public data from the city of Philadelphia. We included a map and markers to indicate available parking lots and basic menu items to operate the app.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest technical challenges we ran into involved adding extra functionalities to the default Google Maps API. This involved adding markers, and updating the user’s location on the map. Furthermore, all of us are new to developing with Android Studio, so the development process took a significant amount of our time. In the end we were unable to develop the android app in time, but were able to make a temporary web version.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud that we experimented with something that we are not familiar with. We each learned a lot about Javascript and Android Studio. And at the end, we each contributed to a successful project. Most importantly, we are proud of devising a potential successful parking solution.
What we learned
We learned how to develop apps in Android Studio, how to integrate API’s and data with the app, and how to work with Google Maps API to make it serve our purpose.
What's next for Smart Park
In future we would like to add voice control functionality to improve the ease of use of this service. Another important development would be the development of a reputation system for Smart Park users. This would be of use in ensuring that users are tagging valid car parks.
We also believe that after some minor UI modifications, Smart Park will be capable of delivering significant utility for the owners of autonomous vehicles. This is why we would like to eventually make this system compatible with these vehicles in future.
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