- Project Manager
- Back end Lead developer
- Front end Lead developer
- Front end developer
- Back end developer
- Back end developer
- Back end developer
- Problem Statement
- Our Solution
- Economic Benefit
- Commercial Benefit
- Environmental Benefit
- Health Benefit
- Functionality
- Technical Requirements
- Programming Languages
- Frameworks Used
- Database System
- Coding Environment
- Hosting Platform
- How to contribute
SycleCity is an online web application that facilitates bike renting. It connects those who have bikes to those who need bikes.
The recent scrapping of the oil subsidy by the newly elected government of Kenya caused a 13% increment on the price of petrol and an 18% percent increment on the price of diesel. This set in motion a rise in transport costs by an average of 8.5%.
Group 22 came up with SycleCity, the first Kenyan online bike renting web app that offers bikes to rent at affordable rates and
therefore combating the extremely high transport costs that citizens face. SycleCity offers prices that are 40% cheaper than
the cheapest mode of transport in Kenya (a matatu). SycleCity has the following benefits:
1. Economic Benefit: SycleCity helps users save at least 40% of their transport costs therefore empowering them economically. Furthermore,
as the project scales, it will employ the youth to maintain the code and the bikes.
2. Commercial Benefit: SycleCity connects those who have bikes to those who need bikes. Those who have bikes can now earn from
their bikes that were previously lying around all day unattended by renting them out to those who need bikes.
3. Environmental Benefit: Other than being expensive to buy, maintain and fuel, cars also degrade our Ozone layer daily. Statistics
show that a typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. A number that can be drastically reduced
when we ditch the car for a bicycle when going for short distances
4. Health Benefit: Did you know that obesity is so widespread that WHO classified it as an epidemic? Obesity, diabetes, high blood
pressure and the likes are just lifestyle diseases that can be prevented with exercise. But in this fast paced, ever-evolving world,
it is difficult squeezing in exercise into our busy schedules. That is no longer a problem. With SycleCity, you can cycle to work, school
or that casual meetup with your friends and get your daily portion of exercise while at it thus preventing these servere lifestyle ailments.
How will SycleCity work? SycleCity's main target is the commuter. A commuter may walk to the nearest mall or petrol station to find a bike station. The commuter may then rent a bike using the web app to another bike station near his/her place of work. The commuter pays and leaves the bike there to head off to work. The commuter repeats the process when going back home. For commuters who are students, partnerships with their institution of study will be key to allowing us to have bike stations within their institutions for convenience. SycleCity will own some bikes and outsource others from anyone willing to rent out their bike. SycleCity is still in the implementation phase, therefore, some of the features have not been implemented yet. Even so, the project is live and is hosted here.
HTML (HyperText Markup Language): To define the structure of the web pages
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): To beautify the web pages
JavaScript: To make the web pages more interactive
Python: To implement the back end of our web app
Front-end Frameworks
Bootstrap was used to style the default Log in and Sign up forms provided by Django
Swiper Studio was used to create beautiful sliding carousels on the landing page
Back-end Frameworks:
Python's Django was used for the back end of our web app. We chose Python over PHP because of it's easy syntax. We chose Django over Flask and Fast API simply
because Django is a batteries included and therefore comes with necessary functionalities such as user authentication and authorization straight out of the box.
We used Django's default Sqlit3 to implement our database models and store user's data.
The project was developed in the following environment:
- OS (Operating System): Windows 11
- IDE (Integrated Development Environment): VS Code
- Virtual Environment: pip's virtualenv (.venv)
- Python Modules:
- asgiref==3.5.2
- crispy-bootstrap5==0.7
- Django==4.1.1
- django-crispy-forms==1.14.0
- gunicorn==20.1.0
- Pillow==9.2.0
- python-decouple==3.6
- sqlparse==0.4.3
- tzdata==2022.2
- whitenoise==6.2.0
SycleCity is being hosted on a platform called Railway. Interact with our web app here and feel free to create an account, don't be shy.
The first step to contributing is to have a similar coding environment. It is not a must to have the same OS or IDE, but it is a must for the programmer to have a virtual environment with all the necessarry modules mentioned here. To contribute to this project, follow these steps:
- Clone this repository into your local machine
- Create and activate a virtual environment within the directory
- Use pip to install any missing modules
- Make your contributions and push them
- Create a pull request