Potential-Energy

This application is intended to assist gravity sports participants in finding adequate terrain.

Currently the best technological assistance for downhill athletes is to simply open Google Earth and look around for elevated areas with pavement. Or to buy topographical maps which are often incorrect, or fail to show roads consistently. Instead of these ineffective methods, most of those who choose to pursue the sport in a locale without a rich scene are forced to search manually.

Proof of Concept:

The initial goal of the app would be to locate a user (or take a user entered coordinate) and conduct a search in a radius around that user. This search is intended to produce the highest elevation local to that user's specified radius, and to generate a path back to the user's location. Upon completion of the pathing, a grade report would be generated, and any section of the path which meets user entered constraints (ie. 8.0% average grade minimum) would be sectioned out for consideration. The user would then be able to view infographics about each section of the path that meets their specification and choose to either save that location or engage in a "trip" at that point.

Stretch Goals:

In the long term, this app could be expanded to include the following features:

• Searching specified paths (ie. user enters two or more coordinates) manually.
• Conducting a radius search of all roads stemming from a point of highest elevation (high cost).
• Saving locations as named destinations directly on a Waze or Maps account.

• Port the application to a native version for Apple and Android products.

Stack:

The only database integration will be storing user account information and saved locations. This is a primarily client-side application and thus will use the following technologies:

• Front end: Vue.js
• Middle: Spring

• Back end: H2 / Hibernate

API:

• Elevation API - find elevations along a path or at given LAT, LON coordinates.
• Directions API - find an efficient path of travel from one coordinate to another.

• Geocoding API - find LAT, LON coordinates for a given typical address.

This is an attempt to both assist athletes and genuinely aid in the proliferation of the sport.