All from a very simple observation: it is not so easy to find a waste recycling facility nearby when I need one! I could not find a very handy tool to do the search!

"I should build one!", I thought, "But it'd better to start from small". I live in Research Triangle area, so I planned to build a tool for North Carolina first.

The first idea came to my mind is a web site that can display nearby facilities on a map and provide a route to the facility. Some facility data was collected first, Python Flask framework was chosen to build the website and Google Maps API to provide the map services. The final Web UI is like below:

NcRA was used to participate in a DevPost Hackathon, but no prize was won. "That is ok.", I thought, "why not convert it to a mobile app to let people really can use it to navigate?". Thus comes the mobile App R3 Navigator. It looks like the below:

There are a lot on my mind need to be done:

1. Compile it to iOS and publish it in Apple App Store.

2. Collect more data for North Carolina: the available data are mainly recycling centers, some other data e.g. the cardboard drop off bins are definitely need to be collected.

3. Collect data for other states: why not extend it to support all the states? The functionalities are the same after all.

4. Add voice assistance to it: how about make it can talk with you, like Siri? That would be not only cool by also useful.

5. Improve the App such that add server-side database support.