TrailQuest

Inspiration

One half of American adults report spending 5 hours or fewer outside in nature each week, with steady decline in recent years. Yet, research shows that connection to nature is essential to quality of life, health, and social well-being. Given this problem, we were inspired to create TrailQuest.

What it does

TrailQuest is a multi-featured AI-powered hiking gamification plaform that brings the fun to outdoor activities such as hiking and picnicking. TrailQuest strives to bring more people outside to embrace the full force of nature by introducing motivational systems inspired by popular video games. TrailQuests' gamification systems include a badge system, quests, and hunting for collectibles. By introducing these types of features, we expect more people to be influenced to partake in outdoor activities.

How we built it

We developed the frontend using React, Tailwind, Node.js, and the Leaflet API. Our AI capabilities are powered by Google Gemini 1.5 Pro and our trail coordination is powered by Nominatim.

Challenges we ran into

One of our main challenges was the integration between Google Gemini and Nominatim. This challenge was very problematic as Google Gemini would often output data incompatible with the Nominatim API, thus had we not managed to solve it we would have had to think of a brand new solution. Prompt engineering Google Gemini to output tailored responses that fit user needs was also very important to us during the creation of TrailQuest.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Developing a robust, complete application with AI capabilities that helps others
Completing a project with only three beginner hackers (avg. 1.5 hackathons across team members!)
Learning how to sleep in awkward and uncomfortable places

What we learned

How to integrate Google Gemini and AI capabilities into complex applications
How to visualize and execute a development strategy
Adapting and overcoming adversity as well as learning from our mistakes

What's next for TrailQuest

We hope to provide multi-platform support for TrailQuest to make it accessible for even more people. We also plan to incorporate further features to greater improve the global perception of embracing nature and what the world has to offer.