RateMyPoo

Inspiration

One day when we walked to class, we were comparing bathroom qualities across campus. We realized that, as new students at OSU, we didn’t have a good idea of which bathrooms to use and which ones were nasty. Since we needed a project idea for this hackathon, we figured that we could create something to help students like us.

What it does

Users can create reviews stored in a Firestore database and then display them on the main “Map” page for other users to see. Other users can also click on markers and add their reviews to the same bathrooms. Users can also add certain bathrooms to a list of favorites that are displayed in the favorites tab.

How we built it

We built it mainly using Flutter and Firebase, but we also had to use the Google Maps API as well as the Google sign-in API. As for workflow, we split the project into main chunks and divided them equally among ourselves so that we would each be working on something different and equally challenging.

Challenges we ran into

Creating a location that had been reviewed was easy, but knowing how many locations could be made whenever somebody would review was a huge challenge. If someone were to create a review in the same location as another person, they would most likely choose a location very close, and it would eventually cluster a lot of reviews together. Because of this, we had to come up with a quick solution that allowed users to add a review to a location that had already been reviewed through the marker on the map. There were also a great amount of challenges simply getting our app to run on the various platforms that Flutter is intended to work with. For example, early into the project the Android section of our app completely stopped working for an unknown reason. We had to make pivots to our original plan to effectively face these challenges which added to the amount of time spent on the project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Overall creating this app was a great experience for all of us. We learned a lot about Flutter and Firebase which are very important tools that we can use in future projects. Starting with no knowledge of these languages/programs made it especially difficult, but forced us to learn a great amount about these technologies. In addition to all the technical stuff, we designed the app with the focus of making it user-friendly and accessible. Additionally, we designed a personalized map theme and logo to go with our project. We are extremely proud of how our Flutter app turned out, and hope to keep expanding it after the hackathon.

What we learned

We learned about the design and thought process that we need going into more complex coding projects. Using visuals and listing out ideas on something physical was a good idea for keeping all our collective thoughts organized and shared. Another thing we learned was that our time management needs some work. This was also our first time using Firebase, google map API, and Dart/Flutter, so we spent a lot of our time figuring out configurations for our terminal, external apps that needed more than just a download, and other troubleshooting problems, whilst having to deal with an emulator that stopped working midway through.

What's next for RateMyPoo

We plan on expanding and gaining active users by putting up flyers in or near bathrooms if people wish to create a review. Before we do this though we want to deliver an experience that is smooth and intuitive to access, along with being more visually appealing.

Built With

• dart
• firebase
• flutter
• google-maps
• google-sign-in