Find your way in the Finnish forests

Berry Picker Tracker is an application designed to help people who have gotten lost in the Finnish forests. Every year, around 15,000 people go missing in Finland, and a large portion of them are berry pickers. Finding people in the forest consumes time and resources, and typically involves the use of drones, helicopters, tracking dogs, and volunteer searchers.

The Berry Picker Tracker app allows you to conviniently see your coordinates and the path you have walked. With the share route button, you can share location with family members or others allowing them to track your route on the "Tracking" screen. The app features multiple map types, a battery saving mode, and a user to user encryption system to ensure privacy.

The mobile app is built using React Native and Expo. It connects to a backend API, which is written in Python. The backend is used for storage, sharing routes, and to serve map tiles. The backend is currently deployed on the University of Helsinki Staging Server.

See the source code on GitHub →

Features

  • Locate yourself using detailed maps
  • Start a route to begin sending your coordinates to the server
  • Follow your route onscreen and end it when you wish to finish
  • Share your route to other via a link, so they know where to look for you in case of emergency!
  • User to user encryption: No worries, your location is encrypted before it leaves your phone and only those you share your route to can decrypt it!
  • Multiple language options
  • Battery saving mode

Demo video

Team

Berry Picker Tracker is a project created by a group of students at the University of Helsinki. Development was started by another team in autumn 2022. This is the second version of the application developed by the Marjanpoimijat team in spring 2023.