Inspiration
Our team wanted to follow the beginner friendly track presented by Knight Hacks since it was our first Hackathon. We were inspired to create our project due to the recent shortage of electronics on the market. Our main goal was to learn as much as possible and to create a functional product by the end of the Hackathon.
What it does
Our project functions as a Discord bot that checks whether a given item is in stock on a given website. It allows users to type in their commands in a discord server, and our bot will reply to them in the chat on Discord with the availability of the product in question and a link to the product page.
How we built it
We built this project using Python. We used the selenium and discord packages extensively to achieve our goal. Using the packages provided by Discord, we were able to create the bot that communicates with the users in the Discord server. From there, the discord bot calls on a function that extensively uses the selenium package. Using that package, we were able to run an instance of Google Chrome to access the websites of our choice and were able to navigate through them until we found the product that we were searching for. At that point, the program would be able to tell if the item is in stock or out of stock.
Challenges we ran into
Since it was our first Hackathon, our journey was riddled with obstacles. Our biggest obstacle was learning Python from scratch. We needed to find a way to run python programs on our machines and way to install the packages that we needed. Additionally, we were challenged with learning how to use the packages in Python to get us to our end goal. Also, we had limited experience with GitHub before we started the project, so learning how to efficiently and effectively use it was a major challenge.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of the fact that we were able to learn a new programming language and were able to develop a fully functional Discord bot from scratch, given that we came in with limited knowledge in these areas. This project took us out of our comfort zone given that we come from a Java/C programming background. However, we are proud of all of the progress we made on this project and are grateful for the opportunity to participate and learn from talented and experienced people.
What we learned
We have learned a variety of skills, ranging from Python to React.js. Especially, we learned how to implement a fully functional discord bot and program using the selenium and discord packages in Python. We also attended various workshops that taught many different skills that we will be using in the future.
What's next for In Stock Tracker
We plan on developing a feature where the discord bot can track specific items and alert the user with a ping and a text message. We also plan on developing a price tracking function to the bot in the near future.
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