Congratulations to Yr 10 students Baxter Blair, Charles Prosser, Samuel Cowan and William Vincent on winning Runner-up in the Mash Up Innovation Competition this weekend.
The boys developed an app called ‘Bus-y’ that allows students to manage their use of the bus by checking delays, ETA’s, and even buy tickets. Currently available for school bus routes, the boys plan to extend usage to all bus services across the Bay of Plenty.
“We were stuck in peak hour traffic when we came up with the idea” commented Samuel. “There were queues of traffic but the buses were almost empty”.
The other problem the app addresses is how unreliable buses can be.
“It lets you view local bus stops and get an alert if a bus is delayed or cancelled” said Baxter. “That really helps if you are on a tight deadline to be somewhere”.
The boys have great plans for their app, including adding the concept of collecting ‘bus-points’ to encourage more frequent usage.
“Similar to a frequent flyer, you can track the number of times you use the bus and earn rewards”, commented William.
The Mash Up competition was run by Toi Ohomai, the Regional and City Councils, Basestation and Technology Wise. 8 teams were entered, rangong in age from 14 – 25 years. The boys were awarded a cheque worth $250.
“We’re using our prize money to build our company” commented Charles “so we can keep improving our app for the benefit of our community”.
