EcoMeter

Inspiration

People around the world don't know how their actions have a direct impact on the carbon cycle. This inspired us to make a simple app that would calculate a person's footprint and tell them if they need to change.

What it does

Our app calculates a person's carbon footprint based off of a few, simple questions. It then shows them whether they have a high, medium, or low carbon footprint and if they need to change their habits to better impact the Earth.

How we built it

We used a platform called Code.org to develop this app. The program is very beginner friendly and we used a mix of its block code options along with typing out our own javascript. The application has 2 screens: a screen for inputs and a screen displaying the results. To find the footprint, we used a math formula we found from a website called just energy.com. Finding this required us to make variables associated with each text field, finding the numerical value of the input, then proceeding with the equation.

Challenges we ran into

Our first big challenge was not having all our group members. No matter what we tried, we couldn't get a hold of them. So instead of waiting more, we had to proceed as 2 first timers and try our best. Another challenge arose when trying to display the carbon footprint after the calculating was done, the text displayed NaN, not a number, instead of the carbon footprint. No matter the values inputed, this was always the result and we couldn't figure out why. It was only after inquiring with our tech mentor we realized that the variables had to be inside the function to be known to the function and that putting them outside the function did not make them global to all the code.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to say that the entire development process of our app occurred within the 5 and a half hours given after the initial meeting today. We found a problem, a way to address it, the research and information behind our project, and executed it all in a timely manner.

What we learned

We learned how to develop an app as a team. The challenge was developing the app on the code.org platform. Unfortunatlely, they don't have a collaboration option and we were unable to make edits at the same time to the project without some if not all the edits not being saved. We overcame this by dividing the work and times we could go on the project and the presentation.

What's next for EcoMeter

The next step for EcoMeter is making it more of a game. This would make people more inclined to make a change to their habits. Also, making it have a log of past carbon footprints would help motivate people since they would be able to visually see the progress they are making and that their actions are making a difference.

Built With

• code.org
• javascript