UTD - UpFeeds | Devpost

Setting a marker for the career fair
Navigating from ECSW to ATEC
Viewing a marker for the Hackathon

Inspiration

When we were freshmen, we had trouble finding our way around the campus and finding events in our free time. That is why we decided to create this web service to allow users to easily navigate the campus and discover what events are being promoted by their peers.

What it does

This is an interactive website that uses Google Maps cloud platform for two main purposes. The first of these purposes is to allow students to inform others about ongoing events on campus, and the second is to provide easy navigation between buildings and classrooms on campus.

How we built it

We utilized glitch, which is a tool for collaborative web development. Within the platform, we had to work with HTML, CSS, and Javascript to create a smooth and functional website. We also had to implement the Google Maps API to set markers and to retrieve directions.

Challenges we ran into

It took a while for us to come up with a solution for how to implement the markers system - with which users could place categorizable markers with event data. Another challenge that we faced was creating and maintaining a backend server that would hold all the marker data.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We managed to complete a good number of the goals that we set for ourselves during the timeframe.

What we learned

We all got started on learning and enhancing our web development skills despite being relatively new to the field. We also learned how to smoothly integrate with Google's APIs.

What's next for UTD - UpFeeds

We will implement a points-based system for users to vouch for the validity of each event. We want to enhance the navigation feature to include classroom-to-classroom directions. To that end, we want to be able to locate a user within a building based on a smartphone picture of their surroundings. This would require the use of machine learning and computer vision.