Goose Watch

Inspiration

Geese. Everyone knows them. Demonic little machines of hate and spite and bad vibes. Why do we live a life where they could be hid behind every corner? Why do we have to go out in fear each day of being found and pestered by their evil souls? We wanted to fix this issue and ensure that noone has to interact with a goose ever again.

What it does

This application gives you a compass pointing to the nearest Canadian goose, along with an approximate distance to it. Users can then use this information to avoid (or for some strange reason - find) the birds of pain and misery.

How we built it

We collected approximate user location data using their IP address. We then utilised Selenium to open and extract the most recent Canadian goose findings from the Euro Bird Portal. This extraction was done by automatically navigating to the current day's sightings on the map of Europe. We then automatically take a screenshot and compare to a screenshot of the empty map. We compare the colour of pixels between the sightings and empty map to find which regions have experienced a recent sighting.

We then calculate the distance between the sighting and the user, and the compass angle between the locations.

This is then presented to the user.

Challenges we ran into

We struggled to find a source of data for current / recent tracking data on birds. The only source we could find of real time bird tracking was through the Euro Bird Portal, however this has no api or easy way of extracting the data. This lead to our slightly convoluted way of extracting the data via screenshots and comparing pixel colours.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One member of our team was completely new to programming, so learning how to program in python and complete a project was a cool accomplishment.

What we learned

We only started this project at 1am after a number of failed earlier projects. We learnt that its okay to pivot and try things and fail, cause in the end we ended up with something we enjoyed working on.

What's next for Goose Watch

The application could be improved by being made into a mobile app, as then we could utilise the magnometer within the phones to made the compass functionality work. Additionally, the type of bird can easily be modified, making the application have many uses for birdwatchers wanting to find particular species.