Week 6.1: Recess week + The idea

So it’s halfway through the semester and we’re in the middle of assignment 3.

Thanks to Milestone 16, the assignment recreated the hype around location-based apps (at least among CS3216 students).

I guess no one knew “Optional” was there.

Of course our team will also jump onto the hype train, and have some fun with location stuff.

At first, we had a consensus that all available NUS maps are sad.

Google Maps misses quite a few Lecture Theaters here.

Where is my LT 25?

And don’t make me look at this obscenity of map.nus.edu.sg:

wtfbbq?!??!

During my freshman time, I had lots of trouble commuting around the campus. The above maps were hardly enough!

That’s why we decide to introduce several awesome additions to the current Google map.

We incorporate the fully detailed labels from map.nus.edu.sg.

There’s my LT25.

We sprinkle it with details of ongoing events, like an ice-cream giveaway.

Free ice cream at COM1!

We show useful tips that only seasoned students are aware of, for instance where water coolers are hiding or the fact that the curry rice at the Japanese stall @ Techno Edge is awesome.

We allow Snapchat-like shout-outs which everyone can see for a limited period.

We want to make a map that’s 50% useful information, 50% active interactions, and 0% sadness.

And so Happ was born, standing for both Happening and Happiness.

I’ll continue talking about our execution of this project, including difficulties and solutions we’ve found in the next few blog posts.