Fauci Says

Inspiration

We took a lot of inspiration from a niche iOS app called “Jacket: Should I Wear a Jacket?” that answers the simple question “Should I Wear a Jacket?” We decided to make an app that answers a similar question: “Should I wear a mask?” Current covid guidelines are constantly changing and are a lot of information to process. Having a simple app that answers this question is really important.

What it does

Our app pulls data from the Covid Act Next API which provides data about current hospitalizations, current community levels and new cases. Our main page displays whether or not you should mask based on the current CDC community level provided by the Covid Act Next API.

How we built it

To build this app we used React Native along with ExpoKit. In the app we get the user’s location and then get the FIPS code associated with their location using a JSON file we made. Then with the FIPS code we used the Covid ActNow API to get covid data for the user’s location. That data was used to generate mask recommendations.

Challenges we ran into

When we first got the tsv file, we had no idea how to convert a tsv file to a JSON file. We needed to use a JSON file so that our front-end developer, who is proficient in JavaScript could process the data more efficiently. The data was initially in a tab-separated format, which would be hard to use, so we custom wrote a python code to convert the tsv file to a Json file, so that we could include our own format to the JSON file. We initially couldn’t figure out how to convert the file types, but with critical thinking and a lot of brainstorming on the backend side, we finally figured out how to change the file type.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The idea for Fauci says was a simple idea that we came up with. However, we are proud that we were able to build a project that can be useful to people especially with the guidelines for masking being something that is confusing.

What we learned

This was our first time working together as a team, so we learnt a lot about how we work with each other. We are roommates so we had never worked with each other in a competitive environment so this was a fun, informative, first-time experience. We each learnt a lot for the others, our data managing and processing team learnt alot about how React Native works and how APIs are managed on the front-end. Our front-end team learnt about how data is managed through Pandas Dataframes and how Python logic works.

What is next for Fauci Says

The API that we are currently using only contains data for the United States. One plan that we have for expanding is to use other APIs for locations that are outside of the United States.

Built With

• covidactnowapi
• expo.io
• httpsapi
• javascript
• json
• jsx
• python
• react-native