ParkingGarageSpaces Simulator

Inspiration

The problem that we identified that this hack is solving is: The issues with finding open parking spaces in big cities. This program will work as a solution for both the owners of the parking garages and the users to easily see what spaces are available and when.

What it does

This program will simulate a parking garage and its occupied spaces. A button was generated that when pressed, will simulate an hour that has passed and how many spaces are available in the parking garage (ex: if you click the button 8 times, that means 8 hours has passed). In regards to the spaces occupied or not occupied, the program will show how many cars have left and come in within that hour, if any. The grid represents 100 spaces, and the red dots will represent the cars.

How we built it

This program is not different than what is currently out there; however, with modifications it can be used to make parking garages more efficient and easier to use. For example, some parking garages have issues with letting people in and out. Some lose their tickets (which our program also has randomly generated per car), sometimes the parking garages are not able to read the credit cards that people put in, etc. With more work and updates, the code could be modified to make it better. The simulation process will help to improve parking garage management system.

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

Pedro: I learned more about Scene Builder and Java. I like the Scene Builder tool because is easy and fast to draw your idea, but sometimes to get some information from the scene may take more time that would be desirable. I learned about communication tools and what the software related people are doing. Xander: During the course of this hackathon, I’ve been able to expand my programming knowledge in a way that was different than class work. Coming into this hackathon, my programming knowledge consisted of only object-oriented programming & a little bit of database management. But after my participation in this year’s hackathon, I can now say that I have experience with GUI programming as well as application development. I’m pleased to now move forward in my programming journey with more experience and confidence in my abilities. Emily: I learned more about the concepts of classes and inheritance with the Java programming language. I am a beginner programmer, so even something as simple as coding a parking garage was a challenge which I did enjoy. I also was exposed to a GUI (SceneBuilder) which I have used minimally before. I am hoping to learn more as I progress in Computer Science, as this is a challenging field that I know I can be successful in.