ParkPal

Inspiration

We were inspired by the many times that we were faced with difficulty and stress while trying to find parking in downtown Columbia. By creating this program it would allow us ease of access in regard to finding parking, which for those who live within Columbia find extremely useful.

What it does

This program allows users to access a database which contains a percentage value assigned to several parking structures or lots within downtown Columbia, Missouri and within the University of Missouri's Campus. This database is a collection of inputs from users who choose to input data regarding how "full" they think a parking area is, which then generates an average "% full" of the parking structure for the next user to come along who wishes to see how full it is or not. Users are intended to access this through our website that we created, which would also host the database for this program.

How we built it

We built the project using HTML, CSS, Javascript, and C#. We used an IDE called Visual Studio Code along with GitHub to create a repository, collaborate as a team, and to host our code and domain.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into problems integrating our C# program into our website, formatting problems, as well as problems regarding setting up an SQL which we were unfortunately unable to accomplish, therefore we elected to using a system of .txt files to store data within it, as well as functionality to maintain both the website and the program separate in regard to equal development for both.

Accomplishments we’re proud of

We are very proud to have made a functional program as well as a website prototype for where the program could be hosted. We were able to complete the large majority of our goals that we formed during this competition, and were surprised to see how far we were able to come with such little experience.

What we learned

We learned several things throughout the course of the weekend; how to host a website, using GitHub, learning new coding languages, and more. We also learned how to think on the fly and problem solve in ways we haven’t had to before as a team.