Figma Prototype
Click this link to view it on Figma to be able to zoom in.
After experimenting with Glide and Flutterflow, we decided on Figma to create a product from scratch instead of relying on existing templates. We had to give ourselves a crash course on Figma to learn how to use its functions. Other than the sign-on and profile, the app presents a (1) Photo Upload Registry and (2) LantGallery, (3) LantChat and (4) LantBoard (leaderboard) which encourages the user to take action in their community – stomping, swatting, and squashing the pesky insects. By engaging in friendly competition to see who can accumulate the greatest number of insect kills, users can take an active role in helping the local ecosystem. Moreover, we incorporate an educational feature, (5) LantLearn, which informs user(s) of the impact of invasive species and disrupted ecology in their local communities (e.g. New York, New Jersey). We’ve designed a dynamic user interface which motivates and inspires individuals to become stewards of their local environment, stomping and swatting the insects and promoting a more balanced ecology in the process.
Replt.it Demo
Click the image below or this link to test.
Instead of coding a full back-end for the app, we showed our problem solving and computational thinking by creating a Java object-based simulation. We created a User class, a UserComparator, a user dataset .csc file and a Main class to test out these methods with the dataset. This can be seen and run through Repl.it. The User class stores all users in a linear database (ArrayList) that is sorted in order of most to least kills. This is the leaderboard that would be shown to users to motivate users.
Twilio Struggles
One team member worked for over half of the weekend to implement Twilio communications with the hopes of creating a system of SMS texts notifying users when they advanced on the leaderboard and when other users advanced to be one point behind them. However, even with the assistance of the mentors, we struggled to implement the Twilio libraries necessary to run the program. In the process, we explored three separate routes to implementation – Maven, .jar files, and Gradle – all of which failed. In the process, we deepened our understanding of the terminal and inter-platform connections, but unfortunately adding Twilio features to LanternDie will continue to be a goal for the team.
Note on Domain
We were also able to get a hold of the domain lanterndie.tech. Because Wix requires a premium subscription plan in order to connect a personal domain, we are holding off on doing so.