TheWay2Co (Mobile Application)

 When asked what I feel is my biggest accomplishment in my development journey, this is the project that comes to mind. In 2021, I launched a mobile application to the App Store and Google Play Store. This application was coded in Dart using Flutter Framework, and linked to Firebase as the backend. 

Ideation

This all began as a university project, when we were tasked to create an Android application using Java, that would solve a problem commonly faced by students in school. As university campuses are generally not accessible, it makes it troublesome for students to purchase items outside of school, especially for those living in hostels. As I usually go out for suppers during my days in hostel, my group of friends would always ask me to takeaway (dabao) food for them. Hence, we came up with an idea for a task pooling application. 

Users who needed an errand done for them could post it on the application, and users who happened to be in the area of what is needed can respond to their tasks and help them purchase their item for a small 'delivery' fee. 


Development

After our university module ended, we were one of the top few projects for that course and gained the attention of our school and some other sponsors. Hence, we decided to take the sponsorship and turn it into a full fledged application.

We decided on flutter for the frontend of our application, because it was a framework that allowed us to develop for Android and Apple phones simultaneously. As Dart was a language we have never been exposed to before, we picked it up through various Youtube tutorials. Overall, I think it was quite a good choice in framework although it is relatively new. It allowed us to code modularly, and came with a lot of customisable widgets. 

For our backend, we used google Firebase. It integrated well with Flutter, and was relatively easy to use and scale. For the messaging services, we linked our application to Telegram for convenience. After a user accepts a task, we sent an API to the Telegram application to instantly allow them to communicate with the requestor.

As we were a group that worked together quite often, splitting tasks was easy because we knew each other's strengths. I mainly worked on the in-app features, such as developing the home, tasks, and review pages. As for testing, it was done at different stages as we were developing our application.



We spent the Covid lockdown period working on this application, and it took us about 2 months in total before publishing it. It was a very fun and rewarding experience. We hit a few roadblocks when it came to debugging, as there was quite little help online when it came to Flutter applications, as compared to conventional JavaScript applications. But we still managed to figure everything out.

Post-Production

We launched the application at the same time the new academic year started, so that we could gain traction as students started moving into hostels. We created content on instagram, and had our fellow students helped spread the word. You can check out our instagram here! https://www.instagram.com/thewayco?igsh=cjhtZzB4M3Y0aXgy

The uptake was quite good, with many students in SUTD downloading and using this application. We received feedback that it helped many students save time, and also satisfy their late night cravings! We were also noticed by the school and selected to present this project to the Ministry of Education.

All in all, this is definitely one of the projects that fuelled my passion for software development. I am immensely grateful for this opportunity. :-) 

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