Mobile application to aid lost item recovery

• Main Author: Bhargav, Venugopal
• Other Authors: Arokiaswami Alphones
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Software; Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Computer applications; Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/167593
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The objective of this project is to design and develop a Mobile Application that aids users in recovering their lost belongings and forming a community of Samaritans that seek pleasure in helping others. That led to the title of the mobile application: Samaritans. The report focuses on the development process of the application going through both the design choices and programming choices made. The project utilizes the Android Studio integrated development environment (IDE) to develop an android programming interface (API) for users with mobile phones using the android operating system (OS). The programming language of choice was Kotlin and Google’s Firebase services were used for authentication, data storage and cloud functions. The UI was scripted using Google’s open-source design system, Material 3. Samaritans is developed to provide users with a low-cost alternative to the many tracking devices on the market today. Users can sign in and register their belongings within the application. Each of these belongings will then have a unique QR code generated which users can print and append onto their belongings. When a user has lost these belongings, another user can use the QR code scanner within Samaritans to scan the code on the item. The owner of the item will receive a notification in their application and the 2 users can communicate using the in-application chat. Through this process, users will also be reducing their carbon footprint as compared to utilizing tracking devices.