Welcome to the Front Porch

What is the Front Porch?

The Front Porch is a way for people to connect. A means for a community to join together. A tool for helping you organize your transportation needs. The Front Porch is a place to find out who your neighbors are, and where to get a ride to where you need to go. Our simple and intuitive interface ensures that everyone will be able to use the program and see real results. With a friendly and interactive Google© Maps style click-and-drag interface we bring the information to you in a simple and convenient, easy-to-read way.
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How does it work?

This program receives the address that a user submits, and sends it to Google Maps Geocoder to turn that physical street address into a set of GPS coordinates. We then send those coordinates to a database of registered users and match the coordinates to any other coordinates that are in a given radius. The matching registered users are displayed on a map.

Users may then register thier own address to submit into the database in order to create carpools.

From there, registered users can create carpools, and other people can find out if there are car pools leaving from nearby at a given time. This could be especially useful for students living off-campus who need to get to class, but don't have a car, or want to share rides back and forth.

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Who wears short shorts?

The group aptly named Short Shorts was formed in January of 2007 to collaborate on the Front Porch project as a subsidary project in the CS W80 class at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mi. Throughout the month of January, we designed, planned, and built this project from the ground up and turned it into what it is today. Long nights, Advil, and gallons of Mountain Dew all came together in the end to produce what you see before you now. Without the generous support of the College faculty and our loved ones, we would not be where we are today. Thank you.

This is Dave.
Dave is a Senior at Calvin College majoring in Sexy. He wishes Matt would stop inviting him to the hot tub. Thinks its creepy. Dave hails us from Lapeer, Mi. Dave will graduate in May of 2007. He Enjoys Jumping Jacks and throwing cats at people who deserve it.

This is Matt.
Matt is a Senior at Calvin College. He is majoring in Information Systems with a minor in Japanese. Matt has never been around the world in 80 days. His record remains at 87. He will graduate in December of 2007 and has plans to work in Japan in the Technological field after graduation.

This is Brian.
Brian likes to wear shortshorts. He bears a striking resemblance to Mother Teresa's male cousin. Brian likes to eat Beijing duck while sleeping upsidedown. His hometown is Seattle, WA. Brian likes Nirvana and Death Cab for Cutie. He will be graduating in May of 2007.

This is Raf.
Raf as a long last name. He is German Jewish. Raf is actually scared of shortshorts like the ones Brian always wears. He was born on a dark and stormy night in Switzerland. He has been in the US since 2000. Raf is a super senior at Calvin, and will be graduating in May of 2007 with majors in CS, ECON, IS and a minor in BUS.

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©2007 Shortshorts w80 and Calvin College.
Calvin College retains the sole express rights to copy and display this data as per the agreement in the acceptable use policy. Any and all other uses by 3rd party are not expressly authorized and malicious or harmful use of this technology or data herein contained is strictly prohibited.
All characters are fictional. No shorts were harmed in the making of this project.