Purdue Class Finder

Picture of Purdue Class Finder

Inspiration

We were driven to create this project because we found the Purdue University Catalog difficult to use and understand. We wanted to create a solution to this problem, so that students at Purdue can use the catalog and plan their academic futures with ease.

What it does

The Purdue Class Finder is a website where users can search the Purdue University Catalog and learn about any course using search filters. The search filters are credit hours (e.g. 1 credit) and course abbreviation (e.g. MA for Mathematics).

How we built it

The front end was built using JavaScript and TypeScript. The code for the front end is responsible for the website and GUI. The back end was made using Python and the Purdue.io API. Based on the filters users search with, the back end searches and retrieves data from the Purdue.io API. The data is then sent to the front end where it is formatted and printed on the website as the search results.

Challenges we ran into

Next.js has very opaque errors, so debugging the errors required a lot of research. Another issue was that integrating the JavaScript and TypeScript files was challenging because the code base utilized a mix of JavaScript, TypeScript, and Python. Implementing web scraping was another major difficulty because it took a lot of research as well as trial and error. Due to how touch it was, we were unable to add functionality to the search bar.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of how much experience and knowledge we've gained. The Hello World Hackathon is the first hackathon we have ever done. Even though we had a lot of work to do, the challenges we faced taught us so much about software and strengthened our determination.