TripTracker – A Social Exploration Companion

TripTracker is a mobile app we built as a team to make exploring cities on foot more enjoyable and social. The idea was to go beyond maps and directions — to create curated walking itineraries around interesting spots, where users could record their own paths, share them, and discover new ones from the community.

With TripTracker, users can:

Discover walking routes created by others.

Record their own paths while adding photos, comments, and points of interest.

Share itineraries with friends and follow their journeys.

Save favorites for offline use, so they can keep exploring without internet.

It’s part travel companion, part social platform — turning every walk into a shared experience.

Teamwork and Collaboration

This project was developed as a group effort, and one of the most valuable parts was learning to work as a cohesive engineering team. We split responsibilities across mobile development, backend engineering, and design, but kept a tight feedback loop to integrate everything smoothly.

We used Figma to co-design the interface, which helped us align quickly on user flows and visuals.

We coordinated backend and frontend integration through clear API contracts, making it possible to work in parallel.

Regular standups and code reviews ensured that everyone was learning from each other while moving forward together.

Beyond the technical work, it was also a team-building exercise: balancing different working styles, agreeing on design trade-offs, and delivering a finished product under time constraints.

Building TripTracker

On the technical side, the project was a complete full-stack experience:

Frontend: Native Android app in Kotlin, with background GPS tracking and camera integration for points of interest.

Backend & Cloud: Scalable services for authentication, storing paths, handling photos, and managing user interactions.

Database: Cloud-hosted DB storing user data, itineraries, ratings, and social features.

Offline Mode: Paths and guides can be downloaded, recorded offline, and synced later.

Design: Prototyped collaboratively in Figma, then iterated as features came to life.

Takeaways

TripTracker was more than just building a mobile app — it was about working as a team to deliver a full-stack product. I learned how to:

Balance responsibilities across a team while staying aligned.

Build real-world features like offline access, GPS recording, and power efficiency.

Integrate design, backend, and mobile development into a polished application.

In the end, it felt like building a startup in miniature: brainstorming, prototyping, coding, and shipping — together.