ProblemStatement

Linn County, IA, is home to a large and diverse network of trails, spanning over 30 miles throughout the Cedar Rapids area. At present, the Linn County Trails Association (LCTA) is primarily responsible for upkeep, maintenance, and publicity for these trails. While the LCTA maintains a web site for the general public to receive information about the trails system, there is no easily accessible mobile version of the trail maps or information. People who wish to use the trails system and have trail-related information accessible on-the-go must either use the standard web site on a mobile device or bring printed maps and guidebooks.

The Mobile Trail Mapping (MTM) project aims to fill this deficit by providing an application for the iPhone and Android mobile platforms. The application will provide easy, user-friendly access to the trail-associated maps, landmarks, and wiki information, as well as provide a convenient way for mobile users to send feedback to the LCTA to be incorporated into the body of trails information. The MTM project will ultimately produce a client-server application that adheres to the following:

Function: The project will produce a mobile application for iOS and Android devices that provides its users a quick, friendly way to map nearby trails, find important locations on those trails, and communicate problems with the trails system back to the LCTA. For more detailed requirements, see Requirements.

Form: The application will be written in Objective-C with the Cocoa framework for the iOS platform; in Java with the Google Android SDK for the Android platform; and in Ruby with the Sinatra framework on the server. The mobile applications will communicate with the central server via standardized Web-based protocols.

Economy: The team anticipates minimal cost in developing the application; the developers are drawing no pay for the project, and the team already has sufficient mobile hardware (some of which is on loan from the Rose-Hulman CS department) to develop and test all mobile applications. The only costs that may be incurred are in travel to and from Linn County, IA. For more information about costs, see Risks and Cost.

Time: The project is scheduled to be completed by April 2011, so that it may be deployed for the start of heavy trail usage in Linn County. The development team members will all graduate at the end of May 2011, giving about two months of testing time in "real-world" usage. After graduation, the application will become the property of the LCTA, and the team will no longer be responsible for maintenance work; however, the team and the LCTA jointly decided to open-source the MTM project, and so maintenance may be undertaken by any willing developer.