Detecting Alcohol Poisoning via Fitbit (Hack TX 2017)

Conceptually, almost everything was there. We wanted to make an app for the Fitbit Blaze that could detect when the wearer was drunk. The app could then call a cab or the user's friends based on how it's configured. There are all kinds of uses for something like this, even protecting a server from over indulging a belligerent patron to excess. I'm going to talk about what went right and what went wrong.

First, we will dissect the team. The people who participated were great. The one who didn't cost the team. We assembled the team in advance so we wouldn't have to scramble to get people together last minute. Many of the participants are extremely talented developers with great communication skills. The only problem was we failed to vet our members by motive and drive. One of our team members had a critical role to our project, but he disappeared early on because he wanted to socialize with his other friends. At an event like this, that's perfectly understandable. That's on me for not taking the time to understand my teammate and what he was looking for out of this experience.

Second, we will discuss the technology. We identified an idea fairly easily. I was excited to get started on the project because I fully believed in the idea. We even knew which platform we wanted to use. One problem though... it didn't support what we wanted to do. We wanted to use geolocation but it's only available for the Blaze. We didn't do the research on the technology ahead of time. Thankfully, one of the members was able to go to the store and buy one, so we didn't lose too much time.

Lastly, the skills necessary to implement the application. When under a time crunch, it’s extremely hard to learn a new language and use it effectively unless the task is small. This wasn’t the case. I found myself, learning React Native in the middle of the night to complete my portion. One hour before the deadline, the silly thing crashed and I didn’t know how to fix it! After all of the work we put in, I felt responsible for costing the team our GUI. Now I know not to learn something completely new on the fly unless absolutely necessary.

All in all this opened my eyes to team management and managing expectations.