Interactive smart app for tree conservation centre

• Main Author: Wong, See Ne
• Other Authors: Liu Linbo
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/140211
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Climate change represents a major threat to life on Earth. It has become a worldwide concern over the last few decades. There are various measures that organizations and individuals could take to prevent and alleviate climate change. Each organization and individual can play their role to stop the effects on climate change through “Plant a Tree” campaign which is in collaboration with tree conservation centre and National Parks Board. The tree donors’ information and their planted tree will be stored in the database for acknowledgement. All donations will help to nurture and protect the forest and mitigate climate change in the world. An Interactive Smart App and the fully-customized QR codes were developed to facilitate the smooth “Plant a Tree” campaign in the era of the technology-driven world. The mobile application was built using hybrid mobile application technologies and then deployed on a Samsung Galaxy J2. Hybrid application development was an ideal choice as it is a single codebase that can be compiled to run on multiple platforms. Furthermore, the Ionic framework which is the most popular cross-platform application development framework was selected to develop a hybrid mobile app. Firstly, the SQLite database system was established through software programming to archive comprehensive tree information and integrated with the Interactive Smart App. The four basic functions of persistent storage CRUD operation including creating, reading, updating and deleting can be implemented easily on the mobile devices. Administrators would be able to manage the information using their hand-held devices without working in front of a computer. Secondly, the fully-customized QR codes were developed successfully for visitors at the tree conservation centre and National Park in Singapore. Visitors can extract information about specific tree identification (e.g. tree ownership, species, recent tree growth images, tree coordinates, year planted) through QR Code scanning. This creates an interesting and interactive learning environment for visitors during the visit to the tree conservation centre. The project objectives have been accomplished. Two components which are Ionic hybrid mobile app and fully-customized QR codes have been delivered successfully. Further implementation of the new function in the sophisticated software gadget is to be equipped with AI technologies.