Covid Vaccine Bot

Visualization of our web scraper and creating an API for our program!
Bot on text!
Another picture of bot on text
Bot text (2)

Inspiration

Since everyone is booking appointments for covid vaccines, it is difficult to find the nearest open location near us. We wanted to make it convenient to find these open appointments, so that you can schedule an open appointment nearest to your location.

What it does

The program sends messages (MMS/email) when new vaccination spots are open. Users choose their own filters such as zip code, radius, and pharmacies. The users can opt to receive the notifications through phone or email. Additionally, the bot can read user questions about covid and respond to them.

How we built it

We started by understanding the API we were using and implementing that data inside our code. After that, we developed the implementation to read and send messages using smtplib and imaplib modules respectively in python. After that, we have to use google sheet API. Finally, we developed the bot responses to questions asked by the user. This includes scraping the data from the website link, and understanding different ways the users might format their questions.

Challenges we ran into

The first challenge we ran into was finding an API with the information we needed. Another challenge we ran into, was having the bot properly decompose and understand questions the user asks and provide the correct information accordingly. We also had to consider keeping the program running consistently, smoothly, and quickly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're a group of motivated Cal Poly students eager to learn new things and gain experience in programming. This being our first hackathon, we're very proud of all aspects of the project, as all members played a vital role in the development of this product!

What's next for the covid vaccine bot

Hopefully, the covid pandemic will end soon and we won't need our program. However, we can improve our program by implementing more APIs from reliable sources so that the bot can provide more information about covid-related data, to provide up-to-date, reliable, and accessible information to our users.