Inspiration
This past year we've all seen travel plans fall through. The number one reason? The hassle it takes to find dates, attractions, and lodging before everyone loses the motivation to wade through hundreds of texts over countless weeks. We're here to fix that, so you can have as much fun as Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart dressed in bowler hats exploring New York City.
What it does
Our app is a simple and easy cooperative trip planner. What does that entail?
1. Start a New Plan - A single user decides that want to start a new trip. They create the trip and add all their friends who they'd like to join them on this adventure.
2. Open Days - All users that are invited to the project add days to a calendar that they are free for the given trip. Once they've filled in those days, they "Confirm Days". (TravelSync then selects days that are free for all users.)
3. Pick Attractions - Once all users are confirmed, they then choose attractions they are interested in for the given travel city. Another "Confirm" locks in these choices. (TravelSync gathers attraction preferences.)
4. Pick HomeAway Rental - The original "master" user fills in details about the group's lodging preferences, including minimum/maximum pricing and bedrooms. They are redirected to HomeAway to book their rental and confirm the trip!
5. Master Schedule* - Once the HomeAway option is confirmed, a master schedule is available for viewing by all users, including days of trips, order/scheduling of attractions, and the HomeAway rental. (Generated by the app for minimal work on the user end.)
*To be implemented.
How we built it
This app was built in Android Studio, with focus on XML and Java components.
A backend server/database is in place (but not implemented) using Node.JS and MongoDB.
Challenges we ran into
Timing was definitely our biggest issue. We aimed high, and resolved to finish/implement a couple of our goals in future work. (These goals can be viewed in our presentation at the end of this document.)
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Our UI design on the Android app! The interface came together beyond our expectations, and is heavily inspired on a certain company's corporate colors, making it look all the better.
What we learned
We got our hands dirty with the nit-picky details of Android Studio (and the frustrations that came along with minute UI attention), we learned how to collaboratively work on a singular Android Studio project (after many mistrials), and how to set up a local database accessible to any locally connected device.
What's next for TravelSync
Finishing our future goals! This will include getting cross-instance interfacing working (between users), allowing persistent changes to the calendar that are visible to all users, creating dynamically generated attractions, and extracting as much info from the Plan to pass to HomeAway's rental search. Additionally, step 5 "Master Schedule" will make an appearance as well.
We had the foundations for these items laid, but ran just sort on time. Once they were implemented, this concept could generate millions in additional income for the companies integrated into the planning phases of TravelSync (specifically the attractions and rental portions of the current build).
Pitch (Powerpoint): link
(Video is within the separate TravelSync.zip submission.)
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