Meteor Tracker

Inspiration

As beginners in the world of coding and hackathons, we wanted to create something meaningful and impactful for our first big project. We were fascinated by the universe, and the recent surge in space exploration news piqued our curiosity about what's happening above our heads. The idea of tracking meteors in real time not only excited us but also gave us a purpose to learn how technology could help monitor potential threats from space while fostering a sense of curiosity and wonder about our universe. Thus, the idea of Meteor Tracker was born.

What it does

It is a web application that tracks incoming meteors and provides detailed information about their approach. It displays real-time data on meteors, including their size, velocity, and proximity to Earth. Users can filter results based on various parameters like closest approach, hazard level, average velocity, and diameter. The app makes complex data accessible and engaging for anyone interested in learning more about space.

How we built it

We built Meteor Tracker with a beginner-friendly tech stack using Java for the backend, Python for data processing, and HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the frontend. The backend fetches real-time meteor data using the NASA NEO API, and our Python scripts handle data processing. We used Java Spring for server-side logic, managing the API requests and ensuring that the data flows smoothly between the backend and frontend. We also designed the interface to be simple yet visually engaging, with video backgrounds and easy-to-use filters for users to explore meteor data intuitively.

Challenges we ran into

Being beginners, every step was a learning experience. One of our biggest challenges was connecting the frontend with the backend and dealing with CORS issues and data retrieval errors. We struggled to format and filter the large volume of data provided by NASA's API, and understanding API requests was a steep learning curve. We also faced difficulties in setting up a responsive and user-friendly interface. Deploying the application was another hurdle, as we navigated new territory in hosting services and ensuring our app would work on different devices.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Despite the challenges, we’re incredibly proud of what we achieved. We successfully integrated an external API and learned how to process complex data to make it understandable and engaging for users. The project has a fully functional backend that fetches real-time meteor data and a clean, responsive frontend that users can interact with. As beginners, this was a huge leap forward, and completing it within the hackathon timeframe felt like a big win. We are also proud of overcoming deployment challenges, making it accessible for others to use.

What we learned

This project taught us so much about full-stack development, from setting up a backend server to creating a dynamic frontend. We learned how to integrate APIs, manage data processing, and make sense of large datasets. We also learned about project collaboration and time management, as we often had to divide tasks and troubleshoot issues together. Importantly, we learned to embrace errors and setbacks as part of the learning process – every bug fixed was a small victory that built our confidence and skills.

What's next for Meteor Tracker

We envision Meteor Tracker becoming an educational tool for astronomy enthusiasts, students, and anyone interested in space. In the future, we’d love to add features like historical data on past meteor events, notifications for significant upcoming meteor approaches, and perhaps even 3D visualizations of meteor trajectories. With more experience, we’d also like to refine our data processing for faster, more efficient performance. We hope to keep learning and improving, bringing more ambitious features to Meteor Tracker over time.

Built With

• css
• html5
• java
• javascript
• python
• springboot