Overview
In the midst of a pandemic, with our future unknown, adapting and inventing a new way a life is what we as humans do best. SARS-CoV-2 has impacted society in ways we never would have imagined. However we must put our best foot forward and continue to make everyday life as easy and convenient as possible. Making information widely and easily obtainable for those who are choosing to be very cautious about the decisions they make is what we are striving for.
Team Members
Toluwa Nafiu | Project Manager | Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Toluwa is a senior at Rose-Hulman majoring in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Software Engineering. As the project manager she was able to create a focus for the team and bring five very different people together to create our product solution. When Toluwa isn’t studying for school or working on side projects, in her free time she enjoys cooking, writing music, and spending time with her family.
Natalie McKinney | Business Analyst | Purdue University
Natalie is a senior double majoring in Actuarial Science and Applied Statistics at Purdue with a minor in management. When trying to come up with a product idea, she thought of a website that she wished existed, and therefore other people might also want to use. When Natalie isn’t studying for school or working, in her free time she enjoys working out and painting with her friends.
Crosby Bingaman | UX Developer | Purdue University Fort Wayne
Crosby is a senior at Purdue University Fort Wayne majoring in Physics with a concentration on Electrical Engineering and a minor in Mathematics. As a member of the Pro-Team Crosby was able to implement the Go-Team’s desire for a map and a search bar that tries to predict what the user is going to input. When Crosby isn’t studying for school or working, in his free time he enjoys playing strategy games, reading and spending time with his fiancee.
Cesar Mendoza | Software Developer | DePauw University
Cesar is a rising junior at DePauw studying Biochemistry. Cesar learned how to use HTML, CSS, and PHP to help create pages, forms, and designs for the website. When Cesar isn’t studying for school or working, in his free time he enjoys dancing, listening to music, playing guitar, and watching movies.
Nick Frecker | Data Scientist | Indiana University
Nick is a graduate student at Indiana University pursuing his Masters in Biotechnology. Using his experience in searching the databases of published scientific literature, Nick was able to secure the information that was the backbone to our decision making. When Nick isn’t studying for school, conducting research, or working, in his free time he enjoys watching baseball and spending time with his wife and daughters.
How did you decide on this customer segment, problem, and solution?
As a team we wanted to find a way that we could keep track of “hot spots” for COVID-19 in order to let people know the risks of traveling to these spots. With the limited coding skills of our team as a whole, we decided a website would be the easiest platform form for us to create. One of our team members came across the idea of a review website because the process of having to google reviews for individual locations became a hassle when trying to decide on what locations were safe to visit. If there was a single website with information about any location they wanted to go to would make life easier, as well as the added specificity of information pertaining to COVID-19.
How did your team build and iterate on the solution?
During the early stages of development, the team designed and sent out a user feedback survey to potential users of the website. We gathered information of the types of features future users would like to see integrated into our website. We explored various databases to store and display reviews to users and settled upon MySQL due to its (ease of implementation?) We also explored how to integrate the Google API to display a Google map on the Dashboard, thereby assisting the user in finding a specific location. Due to technical difficulties with the database that we could not resolve in the available time, we collected user data through a Google form, which displays as reviews below the map.
Key Metrics
Throughout the 5 weeks of this project the Go-Team sent out 2 different surveys collecting a total of 150 responses from future users. The first survey consisted of questions pertaining to the contents and purpose of the website, which received 100 responses revealing what the public wanted for this website. The second survey was sent out to collect real user data for us to kick start our website, which consisted of 50 reviews of 40 different locations in 26 cities in Indiana that our users have been to.
Technical Architecture
We had some technical issues in connecting the database to the website. If additional time were available, we should be able to troubleshoot those issues. For now, a user is able to search for a location on the Google map and read reviews that have been previously entered.
Key Tools, Libraries, and Frameworks
HTML We chose HTML because we decided that we wanted to design a website, and HTML is a language that is used to build websites. We used HTML to build the framework of the website.
CSS We chose CSS because CSS is a programming language used in making websites. CSS was used in building the aesthetic of the website.
JavaScript We chose JavaScript because JavaScript is a programming language that is used in building websites. JavaScript was used to build how the website operates. It handles all of the processes needed to make the website work.
Repl.it We chose to use the website Repl.it to build the website because the website acts as an IDE allowing us to input the code and compile it. It also has the ability to host websites, so when we ran our code, we were able to get a visualization of what the website would like. Additionally, the website allowed us to code in real time, making it easier for the Pro Team to work together on the code.
Bootstrap Framework We chose to use the Bootstrap because it allowed us to implement different features to the website design. Bootstrap allows us to use different fonts, modal structures, and colors for buttons.
Google API We chose to use Google API in the code, because it allowed us to implement some features that we wanted. It was used to aid in the input of a location into a search bar. It allowed us to implement a Google map into the website. It also allowed us to implement a predictive text to the textbox and make it easier for the user to search for locations as it allows for location names and addresses.
If you had another 5 weeks to work on this, what would you do next?
If we had another 5 weeks to work on this product, we would…
- Make it fully functional.
- Connect a database to the website
- Create added security to people’s information
- Focus on expanding its capabilities to allow more people to use it
- Make an app version of the website
- Make it available for other places not in Indiana
- Add a process for businesses to be able to use it to boost their interaction/revenue with customers
- Optimize the algorithm for the overall safety rating based on published literature
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