GoGreen

Inspiration

Our inspiration for the GoGreen stemmed from a shared commitment to a sustainable future. We envisioned a tool that empowers individuals to understand their environmental footprint. By providing a simple way to input travel or food details, our tracker calculates emissions, revealing the tangible contributions each person makes to climate protection. We believe that fostering awareness in this way will inspire a collective shift towards greener travel choices, creating a positive ripple effect for our planet's well-being.

What it does

Our Green Tracker is an awareness tool, a platform that motivates positive change. By using the tracker to monitor your transportation or food choices and their emissions, you're automatically enrolled in our rewards program. As you make greener decisions and reduce your carbon footprint, you'll earn points that can be redeemed for exciting rewards.

Imagine being rewarded for choosing green options. With each eco-friendly choice, you not only contribute to climate protection but also unlock a world of incentives, such as discounts, vouchers, and even exclusive experiences. GoGreen transforms sustainable actions into tangible benefits, creating a win-win scenario for both you and the environment. Join us in shaping a cleaner, healthier future while enjoying the perks of your conscious travel decisions.

How we built it

We developed GoGreen using Next.js, a popular framework designed for crafting server-rendered applications with React. Tailwind CSS was our choice for styling, giving us utility-first CSS classes that made it easy to design our app without writing custom styles. Our data is stored and managed using Supabase PostgreSQL, a powerful relational database that is quick to set up. The entire application is hosted on Vercel, a platform specifically built for hosting and deploying web applications at scale. One of the key features of Next.js is its built-in routing, which we leveraged to build a single-page application (SPA) that is not only fast and responsive but also incredibly intuitive to navigate.

Challenges we ran into

Developing GoGreen came with its fair share of challenges, each of which we tackled head-on to ultimately create an aesthetic and intuitive application:

Lack of experience: For the majority of our team members, this was their inaugural hackathon. During the ideation phase, we struggled to accurately assess how much we could realistically accomplish in the constrained 24-hour timeframe. This inexperience initially led to ambitious planning. However, as the event progressed, we encountered several obstacles and the pressure of the ticking clock. This forced us to adapt our strategy and revise our feature list to more manageable proportions. Despite these challenges, we persevered, learned valuable lessons about time management and project scoping, and ultimately emerged stronger as a team.

Integrating Backend with Frontend: During this hackathon, our team predominantly consisted of first-year students, with only one member slightly more experienced. However, even that member was unfamiliar with some of the technologies we decided to use. We had to learn many new technologies on the fly and found answers to our numerous questions online via google, chatGPT and youtube. This experience was a steep learning curve for all of us, as it required not only understanding new technologies but also effectively integrating them in real-time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of what we managed to accomplish in only 24 hours, that is creating a functional webapp that integrates a relational database and is hosted on Vercel.

Overcoming the Learning Curve: Despite our limited experience and familiarity with the technologies used, we were able to successfully learn them on the fly and apply them effectively in our project. This not only helped us in developing our application but also enriched our skill set and boosted our confidence in adapting to new technologies.

Successfully Integrating Backend with Frontend: Despite the challenges we faced in understanding and integrating different technologies, we successfully connected the backend with the frontend of our application. This was a significant accomplishment for us as it was one of the most challenging aspects of our project.

Adapting to Challenges: Faced with various blockers and time constraints, we were able to adapt our strategy and features accordingly. This adaptability helped us to not only complete our project on time but also to develop a well-rounded and functional application.

What we learned

Building GoGreen has been an incredibly tiring but rewarding journey. We have gained invaluable insights in teamwork, time management, self-study and software engineering, all while diving deeper into sustainable living and circular economy.

Incentives Foster Motivation: A well-structured rewards program can drive consistent behaviour change. Tangible rewards give users a sense of accomplishment and make sustainable choices more appealing, which drives our reward system.

What's next for GoGreen

The journey for the Green Transportation Tracker continues, with exciting plans and aspirations for the future:

Multi-Platform Accessibility: Recognising the diverse ways users access information, we're focused on expanding our reach across various platforms. This includes developing dedicated mobile apps for iOS and Android, ensuring that users can easily engage with the tracker on their preferred devices.

API Integration: We're opening up our platform through APIs, allowing third-party developers, businesses, and municipalities to integrate our emissions tracking data into their services. This integration will foster a more holistic approach to emissions reduction and sustainability initiatives.