"Tutorial: How to create a crowd sourced field research quest map for your local community"

#PokemonGO: Since the introduction of the field research quests the PoGo players in our town have been sharing the location of quests that reward something valuable (e.g Chansey) in one of our Whatsapp groups. It works, but it's not ideal.So I decided to build a better system, especially since my group is trying to get a shiny Aerodactyl and there are lots of stops that give out the 'Evolve a Kabuto or Omanyte' task.The system I built is based on Google Fusion Tables: like a Google Map, but with dynamic data. It's not perfect, but I want to share it with you anyway and hope to get some ideas.How to set it upFollow the documentation here: https://ift.tt/2JkCXij, watch this Youtube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxR4ZETbK3UThe Youtube tutorial is slightly outdated, but I found it a very handy visual aid to help you understand the documentation listed above.How it worksI created a demo and I'm going to keep the form online for a while (or until Google complains that there are too many API calls). Try it yourself:1. Fill out the form: click here2. View the map: click hereYou should see some green binoculars on a map: click them and a customized info window will pop up. The window will tell you what the reward is and give you some extra info (if available).How it could be improvedThe field research quests reset every day, so every day (just after midnight) I have to manually remove the old quests. It would be nice if a Google Script could automatically delete old entries.Quests can be entered via a Google Form, but my fellow trainers are lazy and sometimes fail to fill out the location correctly. A location picker within the form should fix that problem, but (AFAIK) Google Forms doesn't suppoty a location picker widget. There are probably better ways to do this, but I don't know how yet.I always put the Google Maps link in the form, so people can click on it in the info window and easily navigate to the stop. Again, this takes effort and many of my group members don't bother. If only there was a way to generate the Google Maps link via a script and embed it in the info window.The best, but also most complex from a development perspective, solution is a dedicated app for submitting stops. Maybe something simple, made with MIT AppInventor (https://ift.tt/XYrUef) for example.I hope this post can help you create a crowd sourced research quest map for you local community. via /r/TheSilphRoad https://ift.tt/2LWSt2e