TreeID

App Logo
The Figma Layout

Inspiration

We noticed a problem surrounding young excitement and involvement with the outdoors. If kids are already using their mobile devices, why not use it as a tool to facilitate their interactions with plant life? TreeID's mission is to inspire the next generation to be more environmentally conscientious and treasure the trees that surround us. While the study of trees and other plants are underrepresented in the teaching curriculum for elementary school students, they play a huge role in our ecosystem, so it is important to be knowledgeable in this topic. Our app can help students be more aware of the importance of nature and biodiversity and be more inclined to tackle environmental issues that we confront today.

What it does

While exploring Yosemite, the user opens the app once they find a new tree. The app will then prompt them to answer a series of questions about the tree. Based on the user’s responses, the app will provide the likely tree species. The tree type will come with additional fun facts, more features of the tree to look for, or a fun way to remember the tree's key features. These additions aim to keep the user excited by the discovery and leave them eager to explore and learn more.

How we built it

We started by researching plant life in Northern California and landed on Yosemite National Park as our target area. Using the types of trees commonly found in the park, we created a dichotomous key. This key allowed us to create a series of questions that a child could easily answer accurately which would lead them to the correct tree. Using the key as a guide, we designed the app layout on Figma with a kid-friendly themed palette and added functionality through Flutter.

Challenges we ran into

Some challenges we confronted included converting our Figma design to Flutter, as we had trouble formatting the mobile phone layout into our desktop layouts and we had to change the placement of buttons and screens. We also had trouble working with GitHub as we faced several merge conflicts and had to learn more about synchronizing our commits and using this app as a team.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we have a completed product that matches our original vision. We are especially proud that we were able to create a more advanced front-end using Flutter, in which we did not have much prior experience. We are also proud of creating an aesthetically pleasing mobile app that is appealing to children. We are a team of all freshmen with little experience in Hackathons and are proud of being able to implement our problem-solving skills to tackle each challenge that surfaced.

What we learned

We learned how to use Flutter to implement a mobile app and how to use Figma to generate designs for each of our web pages. We also learned how to work effectively as a team and utilize the unique strengths of each member to create a polished project.

What's next for TreeID

TreeID could easily expand to identify beyond the given tree's family. Once the taxonomic family is identified, it would only take a question or two more to reach the specific species, which would make a more engaging and informative app. It could also be expanded to include other flora, like flowers and grasses, or to work beyond Yosemite. In addition, collaborating with the National Parks could allow us to give better identifiers and overall information, especially about species specific to the park.