Project for GovHack 2024. Northern Territory Challenges:
- Boosting Tourism in the Northern Territory: How can data be leveraged to create innovative solutions that boost tourism in the Northern Territory, attract more visitors, and/or enhance their cultural experience?
- Crocodile Watch - Enhancing Public Safety: How can crocodile monitoring data be leveraged to create solutions that improve public safety and reduce the risk of crocodile encounters in the Northern Territory?
- Connecting Communities - Your Guide to local Information and Services: How can we assist local residents and visitors in easily locating local services and providing answers to frequently asked questions?
Croc Tales: Education and Adventure is an interactive tourism and education initiative aimed at promoting public safety and increasing engagement with the Northern Territory’s (NT) rich wildlife and cultural heritage. Inspired by the success of Wrocław’s gnome statues, this project features crocodile statues scattered across NT cities, integrated with an interactive mobile-friendly web app. The app encourages users to explore NT, learn about Crocwise safety measures, and unlock fun rewards as they discover each statue.
Demo: https://croc-tales.web.app/
Croc Tales is a React.js-based web app built to enhance Northern Territory (NT) tourism while promoting Crocwise education through an interactive exploration of crocodile statues across NT cities. Tourists can scan QR codes integrated into crocodile statues, unlock stories about the location, and learn crocodile safety tips, all while progressing through the app.
This project is part of the GovHack 2024 competition, with the goal of boosting NT tourism and enhancing public safety education. By blending culture, wildlife, and technology, Croc Tales delivers a fun, educational experience for both locals and tourists.
- Tourism Growth: Encouraging tourists to explore more cities and spend more time visiting crocodile statues across NT.
- Crocwise Education: Promoting public safety through interactive educational materials on crocodile safety, aligned with the NT government’s Crocwise program.
- Cultural Promotion: Highlighting the connection between crocodiles, NT’s wildlife, and Indigenous culture through historical and cultural storytelling.
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React.js Web Application:
- Modern, fast, and responsive interface built with React.js.
- Supports cross-platform use for seamless exploration of NT’s crocodile statues.
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Firebase Integration:
- Firebase Authentication:
- Anonymous Authentication: Allows users to explore the app and participate without signing up.
- Email Authentication: Users can sign up with email for a more personalized experience, storing their quiz progress, achievements, and preferences.
- Firebase Firestore: Stores user data (e.g., quiz completions, unlocked statues), making the experience dynamic and interactive.
- Firebase Hosting: Simplifies app deployment and scales with user demand.
- Firebase Authentication:
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QR Code Integration:
- QR codes integrated into crocodile statues, enabling users to scan and unlock cultural stories and Crocwise safety tips.
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Crocwise Education:
- Promotes public safety by educating tourists on crocodile behavior and safety through interactive quizzes and stories.
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Tourism Promotion:
- Encourages exploration of multiple cities and locations, helping boost tourism across NT.
- Develop a basic UI/UX mockup for the app, focusing on a seamless user experience.
- Suggest crocodile statue themes and ideas, ensuring QR codes are aesthetically integrated into the statue design.
- Draft the Crocwise educational flow, including multiple-choice quizzes and progressive learning experiences.
- Set up a mock QR code scanning feature that unlocks stories and safety information.
- Compile the concept into a pitch deck or video presentation, showcasing the app’s core features, benefits, and societal impact.
- Include screenshots, mockups, and possibly art in the presentation for visual impact.
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Tourism Growth:
Encourages tourists to explore more cities and stay longer, visiting multiple crocodile statues across NT. The interactive and engaging nature of the app motivates extended visits. -
Crocwise Education:
Provides an educational tool that informs tourists about crocodile safety, supporting the NT government's Crocwise program. This helps ensure tourists and locals alike are aware of the risks and how to stay safe around NT's waters. -
Cultural Promotion:
Highlights the strong connection between crocodiles, NT’s wildlife, and Indigenous culture. By integrating local stories from the Territory Stories archive, tourists can learn more about the cultural significance of the places they visit.
- Node.js (v14 or higher)
- Firebase account (with Firestore and Authentication enabled)
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Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/your-username/croc-tales.git cd croc-tales -
Install dependencies:
npm install
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Firebase Setup:
- Create a Firebase project in the Firebase Console.
- Enable Anonymous and Email Authentication in the Authentication section.
- Set up Firestore and create necessary collections (e.g., user progress, achievements).
- Update the Firebase configuration in the project (
src/firebaseConfig.js).
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Run the development server:
npm start
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Access the app: Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser to view and interact with the app.
- React.js for the frontend.
- Firebase for backend services (Authentication, Firestore, Hosting).
- jsQR for QR code scanning functionality.
- HTML5 Canvas for croc-themed photo frames.
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Croc Statues:
- A series of crocodile statues placed in key tourist and culturally significant locations across NT.
- Each croc statue will have a unique design, symbolizing local culture or a Crocwise educational message.
- QR codes integrated into the crocodile skin pattern, which can be scanned to reveal a story about the location.
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Web App (React.js-based):
- Camera QR Scanner: Users scan QR codes at the statues to unlock stories and progress through the game.
- Quiz System: Users answer questions based on Crocwise safety tips to unlock the next crocodile statue location on the map.
- Interactive Map: Shows the user's current location and nearby crocodile statues (local attractions) to visit.
- Achievements & Badges - Gamification Factor: Users can unlock and share achievements as they visit statues and complete quizzes.
- Social Media Integration: Users can share their achievements and crocodile-themed photo frames on social media platforms.
- Crocwise Education: Integrated educational tips and fun facts about crocodile safety at each stage.
- Personlised Local Services Recommendations: Locates user's current location and suggests nearby local services.
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Territory Stories (https://territorystories.nt.gov.au/)
- Historical and cultural content about the locations of the statues, pulled into the app to enrich the visitor experience.
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Northern Territory Tourism Data (https://northernterritory.com/)
- Tourism insights, visitor guides, and location-based recommendations integrated into the app to encourage broader exploration.
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Latest Visitor Data (https://tourismnt.com.au/research-strategies/research/latest-visitor-data)
- Real-time visitor insights help determine optimal placements for the statues and improve user engagement with high-traffic tourist spots.
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NT Crocodile Capture Zones and Daily Count NT Crocodile Capture Zones and Daily Count
Integration:
- Real-Time Crocodile Data: This dataset provides information on crocodile capture zones and daily counts, which can be integrated into the app to inform users about the latest crocodile activity in various zones.
- Interactive Map: The real-time data can be displayed on the Explore map, allowing users to see areas with recent crocodile captures, helping raise awareness about croc-prone areas in real time.
- Crocwise Alerts: Based on high activity in certain zones, the app can push Crocwise safety alerts to users in proximity to those areas.
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Crocodile Monitoring Survey Crocodile Monitoring Survey
Integration:- Crocodile Population Insights: This survey dataset includes monitoring information about crocodile populations across different regions.
- Educational Content: The app can use this data to educate users about population trends in specific areas, providing context on why Crocwise education is critical.
- Location-Based Insights: Users visiting areas with higher crocodile populations will receive additional Crocwise safety messages based on the data.
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NT Parks and Reserves - NTG Open Data Portal NT Parks and Reserves - NTG Open Data Portal Integration:
- Local Services and Amenities Examples On Map: This is the first factor/example (parks and reserves) of how the project will integrate other local services data onto user's real map. And based on user's location, suggest nearby local services.
By integrating these datasets, the app can deliver more real-time safety information and educational insights, making it an even more engaging and informative tool for both tourists and locals.
- A chatbot that informs tourists about the history of NT and recommends activities to do around the NT
- Ingest documents from “Territory Stories” dataset for history
- Ingest documents from “Visit the Northern Territory” dataset for tourism recommendations
- Improving the crocodile maps
- Current Crocodile sighting dataset is limited to data from 2021-2022.
- For the map to portray real-time crocodile sighting alerts, we need fresh data
- Suggestion: Deploy cameras along crocodile hotspots. Use object recognition to detect crocodiles. Sightings from cameras are recorded to a database. The map visualization is hooked up to the database to display the latest sightings
- Use cameras to minimise human interaction. Save cost and prevent from exposing staff to danger
- Can cover a wider area, 24/7 at lower cost
- Improving the activity map
- Add more types of data to the interactive map. Currently we only have national parks.
- Obtain dataset of local tourist attractions from https://northernterritory.com/map
- Work with local businesses to advertise their stores on the interactive map too.
- Color code parks/tourist attractions/local business
Please see the statue themes and ideas for more details.
Please see the app structure for more details.
This project is licensed under the MIT License .
