Inspiration
It began by wanting to explore the power of Google Maps and its API. We wanted a way to rate a given location by its proximity to parks. We then realized we could expand this idea to other types of services to give a person a good indicator how how livable (based on Entertainment, Transport, Parks, Attractions, and Public Services) an area is.
What it does
The user chooses on of the livability standards to view. They then click a spot on the map. This reveals the most prominent services in that area which relate to the chosen standard, with a max of 20. It gives information on these locations, including address, rating, and name.
How I built it
We used the Google Maps API, specifically the places, marker, and Maps JavaScript API. Using JavaScript, we determine what the user entered as the standard and radius, and then put those values into the API for finding locations. We gather the information from these locations and display it on the screen. Additionally, we have an algorithm for finding the rating, which takes into account the density of the service over the given area as well as the ratings of the individual services.
Challenges I ran into
We began with no knowledge about APIs. Getting familiar with API's and how to send requests with them was a challenge at first. The biggest challenge was probably finding where parks were in a given area. It was very difficult for us to think of a way to set up the code in a way that would return these specific values. It took a while to figure out how to then display the returned values, meaning we couldn't tell what locations our program was returning for a while.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
The biggest moment of victory was when the first address to a park got returned. We hadn't created a visual interface yet so we had the console log any addresses of objects that it returned from the API search. When we looked up the first address in the real google maps and it brought up a park, it felt like a major victory.
What I learned
I feel like we learned a lot about what goes on behind the scenes of a location based program like Google Maps. We learned about all the information that is stored in the objects for a given location and how to take advantage of it. We also learned quite a bit about using API's and cloud services. Having never used one, I can see how powerful it can be for businesses and services.
What's next for Livability
Something that we didn't have the time to develop like we'd hoped was the overall rating system. We wanted to make a complex rating system that took into account distances, uniqueness of the returned locations, area of the locations, and more. Unfortunately, we were not able to do this. In time, we hope to create a rating system that judges an area based on the locations it has.
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