Get electric with ElecTips!

We were inspired to build this app for State Farm's challenge at WE Hack 2022. We feel passionately about alternative sources of energy and improving transportation for all, especially in a large metropolis like the DFW area.

ElecTips encourages motorists to make the switch to electric vehicles by promoting a sense of community among drivers of electric vehicles. Users can input the distance they are traveling to calculate the ideal speed to drive at for perfect energy efficiency. Users can also compete with their peers via the Leaderboard to see who is the savviest driver. ElecTips also calculates costs saved by driving an electric vehicle versus a traditional petroleum vehicle.

Grace worked on the back-end, optimizing Firebase services for ElecTips. Shagun and Avani worked on the front-end developers to build a comprehensive UI/UX for ElecTips. We used Flutter and Dart to build the app for Android.

Each of us had individual challenges when creating this app, but we all overcame them and were able to learn something completely new and more comprehensively understand our tech stack and how to properly utilize all its features. In particular, the front-end worked hard to match our UI to Toyota's brand. The backend faced issues with Firestore when adding and retrieving data from the data base to our app.

We are very proud that we have completed our first hackathon! In particular, we are proud of the Trips page as well as the Leaderboard page.

We have learned so much through this experience and grown closer as a team, and most importantly as friends. Avani learned a new tech stack, Shagun learned how to work under pressure and duress, and Grace gained a more comprehensive understanding of Firebase/Firestore and even got to work a little on the front end for the first time.

In the future, we'd like to work out a more accurate formula for calculating the ideal speed for perfect fuel efficiency by accounting for traffic conditions, speed limits in the driver's area, and internal vehicle factors like A/C. We'd also like to incorporate a real-time gas prices API based on driver location to more accurately calculate cost savings and account for variances in prices across states and cities. We also envision a "Maintenance" page to remind vehicle owners when it's time to perform maintenance tasks like battery changes, tire rotations/pressure readings, air filter changes, etc. We hope ElecTips will make it easier for drivers to choose, maintain, and enjoy electric vehicles. Thanks again to WEHack and Toyota!