Mobile Application for UNSW (1 Viewer)

[dizthewiz]

Hi there,

I am a computing thesis student developing a mobile application for UNSW Kensington campus. Essentially, it will provide you a map of buildings, directions, lecture locations and time, ATM locations etc on one application on your mobile.

I would love to have more suggestions on what possible functions could be added.

For now, these ideas have been suggested:

- Bus stop timetables
- Bus queue congestion
- Sharing of location data eg. notify others of a bad restaurant
- Friends locator - you can see where your friends are (provided they are using the application too)
- Location and alerts of events

 

[shinji]

sounds like a good idea.

but i'm not sure how the friends loccator thing would work.. it'd have to be kinda lkie a gps system.

 

[me121]

does it tell you where you are?

 

[Dumsum]

sounds like a good idea.

but i'm not sure how the friends loccator thing would work.. it'd have to be kinda lkie a gps system.

There are plenty of phone towers around, one could theoretically trilaterate quite accurately, but only if one had access to that data... which I doubt.

 

[Curry]

Parking locations in and around UNSW with info on times and rates.

 

[dizthewiz]

Yeah for now, I will be utilising a GPS system.

So yes it does tell you where you are. Hopefully, I can later extend it to use phone towers so that you won't need a GPS enabled phone.

Parking is great idea....I will probably map all parking around UNSW about how long you can park there for. I might also try to work with the UNSW facilities staff to see if I can track what parking spaces are available for the paid carparks inside campus.

Thanks for the input guys!! All ideas are welcome.

My supervisor wanted a function where when the mobile detects that you are not in your class, it gives u a message "Why are you not in class?" lol

 

[Dumsum]

How about an automatic phone-silencing feature for when you have class.

 

[justfriedy]

Wat about a whole timetabling thing which will tell you wat friends r free at the moment or when they will be free.

 

[BIGTYMA]

awesome idea, sounds like a hell of a lotta work though.

 

[dizthewiz]

How about an automatic phone-silencing feature for when you have class.

That's awesome. I am always the guy whose phone rings in the middle of a lecture. It's not that I'm rude, I'm just forgetful

The friend's timetabling idea is great also.

Free BBQ alert was also something suggested....seems quite popular with UNSW students...I know I was drawn by free meals during my first year of uni with no part time job....

 

[gman03]

So how much extra hardware do you need to purchase? Without them you can't really demonstrate your application.

I would like to find the phone number of any lecturer/staff. Where they are would be nice too!

How about booking court in gym? Price list and food availabilities on campus?

 

[dizthewiz]

You would need a GPS receiver/GPS phone to display your own coordinates. A lot of the functions wont necessarily require your coordinates, but it would certainly be more usable with GPS.

As for a phone, I am still working on compatibility. Not too sure about which phones should be compatible, but the prototype will be based on a medium-high end Nokia phone.

I'm hoping to talk to some societies and clubs to get them to give me some real data about their events.

Hopefully, I can release a (very shoddy) prototype for students to try start of semester 2.

 

[Chris.]

it should indicate the cleanest toilet on campus at the current time when i need to take a shit.

 

[BIGTYMA]

This application seems over ambitious.

 

[dizthewiz]

This application seems over ambitious.

That's the whole point of an engineering thesis. It has to be ambitious. That's what makes it challenging. Most thesis applications don't get completed

 

[Curry]

That's the whole point of an engineering thesis. It has to be ambitious. That's what makes it challenging. Most thesis applications don't get completed

Ambition to the point of failure.

 

[jackycheung]

Ambition to the point of failure.

I don't think it's too ambitious. Sounds like a very interesting project. Beware of the challenge of collecting so much data though

If your supervisor provides you most of the data (GIS data), then it should be ok.

Good luck!

 

[sunny]

I don't think its too ambitious either considering you have a year to pull this together.

The only thing I think will piss you off is trying to develop this on a phone.

The session I did HCI we did something similar but for help stations around uni, maybe you can get some ideas from the HCI class if they're still doing it.


I should get back to my own thesis....8 days left.

 

[ace]

That's the whole point of an engineering thesis. It has to be ambitious. That's what makes it challenging. Most thesis applications don't get completed

Was yours the thesis*, where you decided on using GPS, but the big-ass flaw was GPS goes fucked when lots of buildings around. Interesting given how densely building populated the Uni is, i'm sure one of your main problems atm is resolving that... somehow. In any rate, good luck. Some nice ideas suggested here, if you can get it working, sweet.

*Cause I may have been in the audience when I saw the accessor rip questions into ya

 

[~shinigami~]

Good luck mate, sounds like a great idea.

I know I wish there was something like that available at my university.