An inconvenience that many college students face while going through their daily schedules is small breaks between classes. At MIT, class times are often rather rigid and it's often difficult to avoid a half, one, or even a several hour break between consecutive classes over the course of a day. As a result, students often spend the extra time surfing the web, checking their phone, wandering the hallways aimlessly, or otherwise being both alone and unproductive.

The purpose of our mobile Android application, Swerve, is to make it easy for students to find others to hang out with during these and other brief or relatively inconvenient times. Our app allows users to share locations, activities, and short statuses with friends. Each user can browse through a newsfeed of friends' posts as well as a map of friends' locations, which are updated in real-time. Instead of forcing students to message or text all their friends asking if they are free, Swerve streamlines the entire process. Our app facilitates passive and mutual communication between groups of friends without users having to actively reach out, which is the major barrier to finding others to hang out with during "gap times". Basic user testing yielded unanimously positive feedback, with all testers feeling that the app would be personally useful.