Overview
Parking has always been something hard to come by in times of need, so we thought it'd be better to know how full the parking lot is beforehand. Why drive to a full parking lot when you can know ahead of time where a parking spot is available? Wouldn't it be so much easier to just know where to park before you arrive and save so much time.
Inspiration
Most of us are commuter students and the SCU parking garage can be a doozy to navigate. We figured if someone like SCU had this it would help plan out when to be able to expect to get a spot.
What it does
The last part of any drive is to park your car and it can always be the worst part having to hover around a parking lot waiting around. This website connects to any company's security camera and actively checks the amount of spots taken up by cars with AWS Rekognition. It then finds how many open spots are available by taking the total amount of spots subtracted by the amount of spots taken. Any user can search a given location and find how many spots are still available for them to drive to.
How we built it
We mainly wanted to use the AWS services like S3 bucket and Rekognition for easy to use storage of our databases and being able to recognize filled up parking spaces. Our frontend was built with React.js while our backend was made with Express.
Challenges we ran into
Our group had a tough time figuring out the AWS services. It was something we were all completely new too and it had its fair share of technical issues. We were bombarded with the variety of different and practical services that we didn't know which one to choose. We had to scrap so many ideas because of the difficulty in combining all of the services in the allotted time.
At the start, we had to learn React.js, Flask, and GitHub Desktop that were difficult to understand at first. Near the end we struggled with linking the frontend and backend together. It was rough to try so many new things at once, but it was important we learn all these things to finish our idea.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud of the teamwork involved to make a final product that is presented in front of others. Our group worked hard on finishing this product on a topic that we were all beginners in. It's always exciting and fun to try something new that challenges us.
What we learned
We learned almost the whole time while working on this project. Everything was new to us. Using Github Desktop, the frontend, the backend, and the AWS. We learned how to use React.js, and linking the frontend to the backend. The backend involved Flask, using APIs, and databses that were all new and interesting to learn.
What's next for Peter Parks
Peter Parks still only has a small set of locations that it can look at and still needs to expand its datasets. The website itself is also in its barebones form. A lot of stuff can be added to make it more user friendly, but as of now it's meant to show what it is possible of doing. The runtime for the website could also be something improved on to make a better experience for the end user. A search bar would also be nice for users to have an easier time finding the location they want faster.
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