Finding you the best prices around the world!

With the cheekily-named imCHEAP project, our team set out to design a fun and user-friendly Android app for the backpacker, the hostel-to-hostel traveler, and the relaxed browser, all in search of the cities with the cheapest prices and best forecasted weather. As a team of 4, we worked in a fast-paced and agile framework, made use of a Trello board for weekly sprint management, and facilitated our collaboration via GitHub.

We’ve relied on the following tech stack, tools and APIs in order to bring this MVP to life: Android Studio GitHub Firebase Trello APIs https://cost-of-living-and-prices.p.rapidapi.com/prices

https://cost-of-living-and-prices.p.rapidapi.com/cities

https://countryflagsapi.com/png/

https://openweathermap.org/api

Login page:

Search:

City summary and weather:

Profile and favourites:

Searching can sometimes be slow when polling the API. Upon investigation, it is because of polling API limitations. Searching too many times in rapid succession causes a timeout. This can be solved by purchasing an API service with better limits on querying. The flag API also sometimes goes down. Upon investigation, it is because of regular maintenance. A dummy flag has been implemented to show when the flag API call does not return a flag. In addition, Firebase also has a limited timeframe for client access. The free student account would have to be upgraded to a subscription for ongoing access.

Because we use free APIs in our project, they are subject to instability and termination of service. This issue can be solved by purchasing a subscription to a more reliable API service. API keys are also exposed in the source code. The code base is set as private, but there is still a chance that it can be leaked.