Eng II Odds Estimator

Inspiration

The inspiration for this project is me! As an engineering I student at McMaster who doesn't have free choice, I'm constantly wondering where my grades need to be for each engineering II program. I honestly created this for my personal use, and for the use of other students like me. I also included NSERC because I attended a conference where we learned all about it. I wanted to educate other students about this great opportunity

What it does

This python program takes engineering I students' GPAs and uses some simple math to estimate their odds of admission into each engineering II program, it also educates users about society, management and NSERC

How we built it

I used Python with Jupyter Notebook as my IDE I used Figma to create my prototype

Challenges we ran into

Although the program is only around 200 lines I kept completely revising it when I thought of new features to add or better ways to do things. I put a lot of thought into every line. I didn't want the program to run an error when the user inputs an invalid value, it was challenging to think of ways to reduce this. It also took me a while to figure out a formula to create a non-linear model. Extracting the deadline from the NSERC website was a little hard but I bootlegged it and it worked. I tried very hard to convert the .py to a .app I could run on my mac but it could never launch correctly 🥲

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm most proud of the fact that it actually works, and is pretty useful. I think the non-linear model I used is cool because it's very simple but not too bad. The simple equation for each section of the model is %=((CGPA-lowest CGPA in range)/range of CGPAs)*range of %+lowest % in range. I knew you could use booleans and while statement to stop a program/function but I had no idea how to do that so I'm happy my bootleg "proceed" line works the same. Another bootleg I'm proud of is getting a date from a website. There was probably a better way to do this but if it works it works.

What we learned

Almost everything! I learned how to call variables outside of functions (yes I didn't know how to do that), round numbers, how to extract info from links and how to make some kind of input verification system. I also had no idea how to use Figma but YouTube was a great mentor

What's next for Eng II Odds Estimator

I think the most obvious improvement would be a better CGPA to % system. The current non-linear model is not perfect by any means, refining it would produce a better curve. I also wish I had accurate data to base my program off but for now, it's just from what's online. The program is just that, a program. It's not an app with a fancy UI so I think making it something more would be cool once I learn how to. The Figma prototype is a good example of how I would make the app look, so really all there is to do is combine the design and code

Built With

• jupyter
• python