Save With Solar (by the Hacking for Change team)

Inspiration

Power plants are extremely detrimental to the environment and human health. The substances that they produce such as carbon dioxide, particulate matter and sulfur oxide contribute to global warming, exacerbate respiratory illnesses in children and the elderly as well as lead to emphysema and lung cancer. We looked into alternative to electricity and found that solar power is a rapidly evolving and economically viable alternative to electricity. As this is an issue we're all passionate about, we wanted to create a hack that encouraged our users to make the switch to solar.

What it does

Our hack convinces users to switch to solar energy using an application that shows users the impact that using electricity fueled by coal has on their spending and the environment. When a user inserts an amount of energy in kilowatts per day, our converter shows the pounds of coal used to power the amount of energy as well as the amount of kilowatt solar panels. It also shows the environmental impact of the energy used by displaying the carbon dioxide in tonnes that is produced. Finally, it does a cost comparison between coal and solar energy. Our hack also explains the importance of switching to solar energy to our user, uses an embedded Google Map API to show them nearby stores to purchase solar panels at and shows them different options of solar panels. It allows users to choose the option that best fits their needs by displaying the installation price, the watts produced and the price per watt.

How we built it

We built it using visual basic, python, css, html and javascript. We built an application that does energy conversions and a website that helps user with the switching process.

Challenges we ran into

(From Samantha) I used visual basic as the language. Before Diamond Hacks, I have only done a few small projects with visual basic, so I ran into a lot of new problems. One being how to round the decimal places, Claire with technical help was a great help because she helped me work through how to make it work for each equation. With her help I realized I was receiving errors because it was on a different line and as such was not seen as part of the same process. Another problem I faced was that when the application went to run it was trying to run off a main (which my project did not have), with Anna’s help I was able to figure out that the Startup object was not on Form1 which was where the code was located. (From Ryan) It was difficult to figure out the conversions and the equations.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud that we were able to complete our hack on time with a functional application! (From Rhea) I'm really proud of how I finally got the parallax effect to work on the importance page!

What we learned

We learned various ways to troubleshoot problems as well as how to round decimals. We learned that asking for help is always a great option (the technical help volunteers were such a great help in this experience and are truly appreciated, Thanks!). Finally we learned how to create interactive textboxes.

What's next for Save With Solar

We're working on getting the hyperlink to work where when clicked it automatically opens the webpage or integrating the visual studio project directly into the webpage. We want to do more research on helpful features for convincing importance of cleaner energy.

Built With

• css3
• google-maps
• html5
• javascript
• python
• virtual-basic