Students develop app to determine real-time beach occupation

A group of four high school students from Portugal developed an app to monitor the real time capacity of 580 beaches across the country. The app is called SandSpace and the aim is for people to check the app before going to the beach, to determine if it is overcrowded or not.

SandSpace relies on its user, who update the app with information about the beach’s current occupation. The app will then translate that information into a color code in which green represents low occupation, yellow means the beach is somewhat crowed and red tell the user that the beach is close to capacity.

The students also included a section on the app where it is possible to read the restrictions put in place by the national government that should be followed at the beach.

The entire process of development of the app took 4 days and was done remotely, under the supervision of Professor Fátima Pais, who commended the students for their work “the kids shoed incredible enthusiasm and dedication, working for up to 14 hours a day.”

The app is available to download at the Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.essl.sandspace

Adapted from: https://www.publico.pt/2020/05/19/p3/noticia/covid19-estudantes-criam-ap...
http://essl.pt/agoranos/index.php/departamentos/tecnologias/1359-sandspa...

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