Our group has formed! Introducing our group, Outside the Loop, which will focus our travel guide app on the adventure-seeking Chicago tourist.
This week our group met twice over video calls through Google Hangouts. Google Hangouts has offered our group an ideal way to meet online and get work done in real-time through shared Google Docs. How far technology has come! We began by individually reading through the Chicago data and existing app examples and came together armed with some app ideas of our own to bring to the table. We were able to narrow down our list of app ideas fairly quickly as we decided to focus on something that we all have in common: the love of traveling. To put a spin on the typical travel guide, we are gearing our app specifically to adventure-seeking visitors of Chicago.
The catch phrase that really stuck with us when developing our idea is "experiencing Chicago through the eyes of a local." We want to give tourists the chance to venture farther than Michigan Ave. and Navy Pier into the richness of Chicago's neighborhoods. Our app will offer recommendations that you would never get from your hotel concierge or typical pocket guide featuring real-time recommendations of Chicago locals. Where do the locals go to grab a pizza after work? Which bike routes do they prefer. This is all about offering options to tourists so that they are able to experience the city like we do.Additionally, we want to make sure that we stress user safety in regards to this app. Crime is a valid concern of anyone traveling to a new city and we want to make sure that we are only advising people to go to places that are considered safe. To do this we will use Chicago data and crime reports to advise users where not to go and to filter listed activities and tips to make sure that none of them take place in high-crime rated areas. 
I am excited about our idea and am looking forward to working with Agnes and Neil over the upcoming weeks.