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.