## Inspiration

Toronto is famous because it is tied for the second longest average commute time of any city (96 minutes, both ways). People love to complain about the TTC and many people have legitimate reasons for avoiding public transit. With our app, we hope to change this. Our aim is to change the public's perspective of transit in Toronto by creating a more engaging and connected experience.

## What it does

We built an iOS app that transforms the subway experience. We display important information to subway riders, such as ETA, current/next station, as well as information about events and points of interest in Toronto. In addition, we allow people to connect by participating in a local chat and multiplayer games.

We have small web servers running on ESP8266 micro-controllers that will be implemented in TTC subway cars. These micro-controllers create a LAN (Local Area Network) Intranet and allow commuters to connect with each other on the local network using our app. The ESP8266 micro-controllers also connect to the internet when available and can send data to Microsoft Azure.

## How we built it

The front end of our app is built using Swift for iOS devices, however, all devices can connect to the network and an Android app is planned for the future. The live chat section was built with JavaScript. The back end is built using C++ on the ESP8266 micro-controller, while a Python script handles the interactions with Azure. The ESP8266 micro-controller runs in both access point (AP) and station (STA) modes, and is fitted with a button that can push data to Azure.

## Challenges we ran into

Getting the WebView to render properly on the iOS app was tricky. There was a good amount of tinkering with configuration due to the page being served over http on a local area network (LAN).

Our ESP8266 Micro-controller is a very nifty device, but such a low cost device comes with strict development rules. The RAM and flash size were puny and special care was needed to be taken to ensure a stable foundation. This meant only being able to use vanilla JS (no Jquery, too big) and keeping code as optimized as possible. We built the live chat room with XHR and Ajax, as opposed to using a websocket, which is more ideal.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our UI design. We think that our app looks pretty dope!

We're also happy of being able to integrate many different features into our project. We had to learn about communication between many different tech layers.

We managed to design a live chat room that can handle multiple users at once and run it on a micro-controller with 80KiB of RAM. All the code on the micro-controller was designed to be as lightweight as possible, as we only had 500KB in total flash storage.

## What we learned

We learned how to code as lightly as possible with the tight restrictions of the chip. We also learned how to start and deploy on Azure, as well as how to interface between our micro-controller and the cloud.

## What's next for Commutr

There is a lot of additional functionality that we can add, things like: Presto integration, geolocation, and an emergency alert system.

In order to host and serve larger images, the ESP8266' measly 500KB of storage is planning on being upgraded with an SD card module that can increase storage into the gigabytes. Using this, we can plan to bring fully fledged WiFi connectivity to Toronto's underground railway.
## Inspiration

The transition from high school to university is indeed a challenging phase wherein a student not only navigates through the curriculum but at the same time he/she/they are figuring out who they are as individuals, their passion etc. For students coming from culturally diverse backgrounds, things become even more challenging. There are many school factors that affect the success of culturally diverse students the school's atmosphere and overall attitudes toward diversity, involvement of the community, and culturally responsive curriculum, to name a few.
To help those coming from culturally diverse backgrounds and help the transition process be a smooth and easy one, we bring to you Multicultural Matrix, a platform celebrating cultural diversity and providing a safe space with tools and equipment to help students sail through the college smoothly making the max use of opportunities out there.

## What it does

The platform provides tools and resources required for students to navigate through the university.
The platform focuses on three main aspects-
1)Accommodation
Many students look for nearby affordable accommodations due to personal and financial constraints wherein the accomodations welcome diversity and different communities. To help with that the accommodation section plans to help students find accomodations that matches their requirements.
2) Legal Documentations
Handling paperwork can be difficult for international students coming from across the globe and the whole documentation process gets 10x more complicated. The website also caters to handling paperwork by providing all the resources and information on one platform so that the student doesn't have to hop here and there looking for help and guidance.
3) Food and Culture
Adjusting to a new University and a new place can be very challenging as you're thrown completely outside of your comfort zone and it's often that you crave the familiarity and comfort of your community, culture and food. To help students find "Home Away From Home" we have also added a food section that shows the cheapest and best-rated restaurants nearby your location based on the cuisine and food you are craving.

## How we built it

The front end was built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
We also used Twilio, BotDoc, Auth0 and Coil.

## Challenges we ran into

The CSS adjustment and integration of the tools and tech with the website was a bit challenging but we were able to find our way through the challenges as a team

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

Working together as a team and coming up with a solution that solves real-world problems is something we're proud of at the same time celebrating diversity.

## What we learned

We learned how to use parallax scrolling on the website and learned how to work with Twilio, BotDoc etc.

## What's next for Multicultural Matrix

We do plan on making the different aspects of the website functional and using the MERN stack to implement the backend. We also plan on providing resources such as internship opportunities and scholarships for students coming from culturally diverse backgrounds.

## Domain:

Domain.com: multicultural-matrix.tech
## Inspiration

We thought it would be nice if, for example, while working in the Computer Science building, you could send out a little post asking for help from people around you.

Also, it would also enable greater interconnectivity between people at an event without needing to subscribe to anything.

## What it does

Users create posts that are then attached to their location, complete with a picture and a description. Other people can then view it two ways.

**1)** On a map, with markers indicating the location of the post that can be tapped on for more detail.

**2)** As a live feed, with the details of all the posts that are in your current location.

The posts don't last long, however, and only posts within a certain radius are visible to you.

## How we built it

Individual pages were built using HTML, CSS and JS, which would then interact with a server built using Node.js and Express.js. The database, which used cockroachDB, was hosted with Amazon Web Services. We used PHP to upload images onto a separate private server. Finally, the app was packaged using Apache Cordova to be runnable on the phone. Heroku allowed us to upload the Node.js portion on the cloud.

## Challenges we ran into

Setting up and using CockroachDB was difficult because we were unfamiliar with it. We were also not used to using so many technologies at once.