Spring Bloom Identifier

Inspiration

Spring is a season when plants bloom and biodiversity peaks. However, many people, especially beginners, struggle to identify plant species just by looking at them. I wanted to build a simple yet impactful solution where anyone can upload a plant photo and instantly get details about the plant species using AI.

This project was inspired by the goal of making botany accessible to everyone, from students and garden enthusiasts to nature explorers.

What I Learned

Integrated a third-party API (Plant.id) to work with user-uploaded images. Learned full-stack deployment using Vercel (Frontend) and Render (Backend). Managed API keys securely with dotenv. Enhanced frontend UI/UX for smooth user interactions. Understood CORS and cross-origin issues in full-stack apps.

How I Built It

Frontend (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) — For image upload, preview, and displaying plant details. Tested with multiple plant images to ensure usability and error handling. Enhanced UI with dynamic feedback for non-plant images and low-confidence cases.

Challenges I Faced

API integration and handling base64 image conversion. Managing API response errors when images were not clear or not plants. Deploying frontend and backend separately and linking them correctly. Ensuring CORS policies allowed communication between frontend and backend. Structuring project folders to maintain clarity in GitHub.