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Project Info

SlugPool

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Inspiration

For the past few quarters, we have personally dealt with and seen a lot of students struggling to find a mode of transportation back home. There would be constant Reddit posts asking if there was someone going to their hometown that could give them a ride, and many people around us kept asking if there was a way for us to give them a ride back home. Some of ourselves have often utilized this economical method of transportation as we live quite close to each other. We knew that this was a big problem for fellow Slugs, so we created SlugPool, a ride-sharing app built specifically for UC Santa Cruz.

What it does

There are two main parts that SlugPool implements. One is a list of carpool drivers that are available. It’s stylized in a cell format that includes the driver’s name, phone number, how many seats they have, where they’re coming from, where they’re going to, and how much they charge for gas (if applicable). The user can register to carpool others by using the “+” button on the right of the navigation screen and filling in the necessary details. The second part is a map that shows exactly where whichever carpool driver you choose is so that you’re prepared and not left clueless as to where they may be.

How we built it

We created our app using React Native, a JS framework for cross-platform mobile app development. We used GitHub to synchronize our changes and work together efficiently.

Challenges we ran into

One of the main challenges we ran into was working with React.js. It was a beginner's experience for all of us because we weren’t used to that framework, so it took some time to learn and get comfortable with. Once we had that down, however, making the project became a lot smoother. Getting the map view and location permissions working also took some time. We also struggled a bit with database authentication

Accomplishments we're proud of

One of the main accomplishments we’re proud of is actually building this app. Considering, like mentioned before, it was kind of a beginner’s experience for all of us, we made a very good amount of progress. In addition, one of our other main accomplishments was implementing an icon tracker that happened to be a hand drawn slug. That definitely took some time but it was something we got working, and we’re glad we got it working because it really adds the UCSC touch to the project.

What we learned

Through creating our app, we learned valuable skills such as how to use the React Native platform to create a basic app, as well as using a navigation map widget. We learned how to create custom UI components and a tab bar for navigation, as well as combine everything to make a seamless app. Furthermore, we learned how to dynamically create a list of items sourced from a database/local storage.

What's next

SlugLoop has a lot of potential for the future. There are many things we did not have time to implement. One thing we hope to implement is allowing users to select a pickup location by simply dragging a marker to the location. Another goal of ours is simple UI improvements in order to make the UX flow better. We also plan on creating simple chat functionality so people can chat through the app if they prefer.

Analysis

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Technology

Found in codeClaimed only
  • FirebaseIn code
  • JavaScriptIn code
  • ReactIn code

3 of 3 appear in the indexed code.

AI coding agents

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Codebase size

Source size

23 KB

Source files

9

Counts recognized source files only; vendored directories, binaries and lockfiles are excluded, so this is smaller than the repository on disk.

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