Exploring your diverse community is as easy as a walk in the park. 🌳
Winner of Best AI in Education Hack in GenAI Genesis Hacks 2024
As we noticed in our day-to-day lives, we are not fully aware of the cultures surrounding our diverse environments. Our inspiration stemmed from a profound interest in learning about community equity, diversity, and inclusion. We were captivated by the idea of creating a platform that could foster connections and understanding among people from different backgrounds.
Walk in the Park functions as a gamified map game, akin to Pokemon Go, where users can visit various locations. Each location provides a curated song selected by AI and information crafted by AI, educating users about the historical struggles of different communities and their current impact on society. It serves as a tool for community engagement and self-awareness, encouraging users to explore and learn about diverse cultures.
We developed Walk in the Park as a mobile application with cross-platform capabilities. Utilizing a combination of languages and frameworks, we ensured a seamless user experience. Our approach involved extensive collaboration and experimentation to create a cohesive product that aligned with our vision.
Throughout the development process, we encountered several challenges. One major hurdle was emulating consistent environments for each team member, ensuring parity in our experiences. Additionally, navigating server-related issues proved to be a significant obstacle that required creative problem-solving and collaboration to overcome.
We take pride in successfully creating a fully functional product that holds genuine community impact potential. Our team's dedication and perseverance allowed us to overcome obstacles and deliver a compelling solution that aligns with our values of inclusivity and education. That's how we came up with the concept of "Walk in the Park," a mobile app that has the goal of fostering empathy, understanding, and cultural awareness through gamified exploration and curated educational content.
Working on Walk in the Park provided us with invaluable learning experiences. We gained expertise in new technologies and frameworks, pushing ourselves to explore alternative approaches such as utilizing Gemini over GPT. Furthermore, the project deepened our understanding of community dynamics and the importance of fostering empathy and understanding across diverse backgrounds.
Looking ahead, our focus is on refining the app's algorithm to enhance user retention and engagement. Additionally, we plan to implement marketing strategies to build a supportive community around the app, fostering meaningful connections and dialogue among users. Continual iteration and improvement will be key as we strive to maximize the positive impact of Walk in the Park.
Walk in the park is a React Native mobile application supported for both Apple and Android with a Python-based server infrastructure. We used a combination of Android Studio's emulators and Expo to simulate our application in a development environment.
- Node.js: Ensure Node.js is installed on your system. You can download and install it from the official website
- Java Development Kit (JDK): Requirement to develop Android applications using React Native
- axios: Promise-based HTTP client for making requests to your server or external APIs
- expo-location: Provides access to device location information in Expo projects
- expo-status-bar: Component for displaying a status bar on Expo projects
- react: Library for building user interfaces
- react-native: Framework for building native mobile applications using JavaScript and React
- react-native-maps: Library for integrating maps into your React Native application
- react-native-progress: Library for displaying progress indicators in React Native applications
- react-native-reanimated: React Native library for animations and interactions
- react-native-svg: Library for rendering SVG images in React Native applications
- Flask: For creating our back-end server
- Geoapify: Python client library for accessing Geoapify APIs.
- VertexAI (gemeni-1.0-pro-vision): For accessing features of Google Cloud's Vertex AI
- Spotipy (Spotify API): For accessing the Spotify Web API
- Vu Cao: @mizly
- Daniel Lu: @FinityFly
- Edwin Ngui: @EdwinNgui
- Ryan Zhu: @Juno9170