Inspiration

One of our group members had recently installed solar panels on their house and mentioned how for most people they would make sense. From this, Solar Sense YYC was born.

What it does

Solar Sense YYC aims to bring awareness to living a sustainable lifestyle by showcasing the ease and affordability of solar panels. This is done by simply inputting your address and some simple parameters like how much roof space you are willing to allocate and average yearly power consumption. From this we are able to calculate your average power created with solar panels based on solar data. With the use of the Solcast API and the Geopy API, you are able to calculate the cost of solar panels anywhere in the world.

How we built it

We allocated people to the front and back end of our program and then further split those groups up into manageable chunks. Our program took us into the late hours of the night but in the end we were able to complete and transform it into a program we are extremely proud of.

Challenges we ran into

Our major challenge we ran into was finding a suitable API that we could pull solar data from. Most out there required a hefty fee in order to gain access to a key. However, we eventually found Solcast, a free API which only has the restriction of using it a certain number of times each day.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are extremely proud of getting a very professional looking and feeling code. It is our group's first time competing in a major hackathon and as first year students, we are extremely proud of the quality of our product.

What we learned

We have learned the extremely important aspect of managing our time effectively. At the beginning of the hackathon we wasted a large chunk of valuable time by trying to create a project that was completely out of the scope of this competition. If we were able to retry this hackathon again, we would definitely focus on a project that is simple in an idea, but has huge potential for creating an all encompassing program, such a Solar Sense YYC.

What's next for Solar Sense YYC

We plan on expanding the amount of different calculators included in our program such as a water recycling system in order to reduce waste water. We also plan on creating a platform in which a user is able to get into contact with local installers for things like solar panels or other sustainable technologies in order to make the process as easy as possible. With the inclusion of these various features, we are able to create a one-stop-shop for all sustainable and money saving lifestyles.