Drake's Equation

Inspiration

I just like the idea of space and potential alien life.

What it does

It uses the Drake Equation, which is N = R * fp * ne * fl * fi * fc * L , allows the user to type in their estimates in each category, and then gives the user N (result) which is the number of intelligent alien life in our galaxy - the Milky Way.

How I built it

I used C++, trial & error, and researched on what each variable represents.

Challenges I ran into

I had to use 'float' instead of 'int' datatype, due to some of the numbers being in decimal (fraction) form. Also finding out what each variable represents was also a little daunting. Also, early on, my program was giving me garbage data, which I did fix by fixing one line of code.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I am happy that the program (mathematically) works, and I did it from scratch.

What I learned

I learned that there are too many variables to determine alien life in our (or any) galaxy. In C++ I learned that you will get garbage data if you have a variable that you declared but didn't give a value (in my case anyways.), but actually used. I am glad I learned about Hackathons and how fun they can be just to participate.

What's next for Drake's Equation

There really isn't much left for the Drake Equation. In the future I could use a more complex equation (for a different topic), but there's not much else to do for my program.

Built With

• c++