Relievaid

Increase awareness of natural disasters to encourage early preparation

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Inspiration

With the numerous natural disasters over the past few years, we feel it is extremely important to people to be informed and prepared to face such events. We provide people who lack the resources to stay safe and comfortable with the option to efficiently request such items from others. Danger is inevitable, and we must always prepare for the worst.

What it does

Our app Relievaid strives to inform users of the importance of making preparations for natural disasters. By connecting users to detailed websites and providing a fun quiz, we encourage people to research ways to stay safe in emergency situations. We also provide an option for users in inconvenient situations to quickly request potentially valuable equipment by connecting the app to SMS messages.

How we built it

We used Android Studio to develop our application. We coded the layout of the app using XML and user interface component with Java. We primarily used intents to navigate between different activities in the app, send SMS messages, and open web browsers from within the application. We researched credible sources to learn more about the value of emergency preparation for natural disasters and shared our knowledge through an interactive quiz.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was getting started with Android Studio for app development. While most members had some experience in Java, the Android Studio IDE had numerous unique features, including dependence on the XML markup language to develop layouts. The AsyncTask used for background processing in Android also had a steep learning curve, so we were unable to learn the mechanism sufficiently in our limited time. Troubleshooting bugs in Android Sutdio was particularly difficult due to our unfamiliarity.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of creating a useful product despite our limited experience in programming. Learning the basics of Android Studio, in particular, was a great accomplishment.

What We learned

This weekend, we learned how to use Android Studio for app development as well as basics of the XML markup language for design. We also learned that while skill and experience are immensely important, creativity is needed to carry out meaningful ideas and develop useful products. We came to the hackathon with a bit of fear at our inexperience, but we now feel more confident in our abilities. We also learned the value of taking advantage of every member's strengths when working on a team project. Combining technical and artistic talents will create the most successful application.

What's next for Relievaid

In the future, we plan to utilize APIs provided by services like Google Maps, which will enable us to obtain real-time data on climate and weather changes. We will also make use of open source data sets to acquire a more thorough understanding of the conditions, including time and location, natural disasters are most likely to occur.

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