A new smartphone application can now save students from waiting 20 minutes for a treadmill or the frustrations of not finding an open racquetball court at the SERF.
UW-Madison computer engineering student Zach Vander Velden launched a new mobile app Wednesday on the Google Play Store to help fellow students monitor occupancy at the Southeast Recreational Facility on campus.
“How Full is the SERF?” displays live statistics of how many people are occupying each room in the SERF based on hourly headcounts conducted by the facility’s employees.
Vander Velden first discovered a need for the app his freshman year, when he spent three days every week playing basketball at the SERF. He explained the struggle of forming teams for scrimmages without a method of knowing how many people would be in the gym.
The sophomore commenced production on “How Full is the SERF?” in August. He used the Adobe PhoneGap platform to create the app, which he found to be a fairly easy process due to his experience in computer sciences.
While Wednesday marked the debut of the app on the Google Play Store for the Android system, Vander Velden first launched the app on the iOS App Store for iPhones Friday. The mobile app has approximately 750 iPhone and Android smartphone users so far.
Vander Velden considers “How Full is the SERF?” a hobby and made the app free to download.
“I make no money [from the app],” Vander Velden laughed. “I’m not a very entrepreneurial person.”
Although the current academic semester has been keeping him busy, Vander Velden plans to also make live occupancy information available for the Natatorium in the Lakeshore neighborhood before winter break.
”I have no idea where [“How Full is the SERF?”] is going to go or what will happen, but I am very excited,” Vander Velden said. “I am taking it a day at a time. I just hope people like the app. I want it to be used and positively affect lives.”
