RocketWatchPCC

Inspiration

Rockets launch from Vandenberg, 235 km from our campus — and most students never know. Tonight one goes up at 9:02 PM. We wanted every PCC student to know before they go.

What it does

A live tracker for tonight's launch and every Vandenberg launch after it: real-time countdown, exact viewing direction (WNW, 287°), a live weather check that gives an honest "will you actually see it" verdict, an AI voice announcer, the live webcast, a sight-line map, and a search that computes the view from any address.

How we built it

Python + Streamlit, live data from Launch Library 2 (The Space Devs), Open-Meteo weather, Nominatim/OpenStreetMap geocoding, CARTO map tiles, pydeck mapping, ElevenLabs voice. Merged three teammates' design versions into one visual identity with pure CSS.

Challenges we ran into

Proving the data is real (we added a live "receipts" panel that recomputes every number on screen), an honest sky verdict instead of a hype answer on an overcast night, testing across phones on different networks, and merging three different design directions in the final hour.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Everything on screen is live and checkable — nothing hardcoded. AI tools (Claude, ElevenLabs) were used and are disclosed.

What we learned

Live data beats fake data — judges and users can tell. We learned to verify everything on a real phone, not just the dev screen, and that an honest "no, you won't see it tonight" builds more trust than a hyped yes.

What's next for RocketWatchPCC

Tonight at 9:02 we use it for real on campus. Next: push alerts before every visible Vandenberg launch, a campus-map picker for exact viewing spots at PCC, and keeping it free for students.

Built With

• carto
• elevenlabs
• launch-library-2
• nominatim
• open-meteo
• openstreetmap
• pydeck
• python
• streamlit