Inspiration
Enabling those who still require methods of receiving packages at covert (discrete) and protected locations. Further, streamlining NJIT's student-oriented work overhead with an easy-to-use and informative logging system.
What it does
Informatively directs users to identifying the Parcel Panther software and its capabilities, currently "supported" locations, implementable actions (with supported front to backend tools), demonstrable view-based package data-logs, interactable "check-out" page, as well as an implementable administrative tool.
How we built it
Domain.com provided the initial hosting site (parcelpanther.tech) with their free 6-page website designer tool. The customization of these html pages led to further development with Jet Brains: WebStorm, PhpStorm, and Pycharm. Github was utilized for our centralized version control, alongside Dockerhub for containerization and Azure (http://parcelpanthers.eastus.azurecontainer.io/) for hosting. Google Cloud succeeded storage and some scripting (for OCR and communication with current standing database as a local csv dynamically updated by Google Sheets) the initial backend designs with Azure storage containers and initially cockroachdb, both had to be temporarily replaced due to php configurations that allows Jet Brains to connect but not javascript to php for server responses (Virtualbox was utilized to create an Ubuntu LTS machine for running a cluster with cockroachdb).
Challenges we ran into
Php communication issues hindered our success with cockroachdb, Google Cloud as well as Azure credits had conflicts with previous courses being expended (some teammates have courses that are intensive with azure and the $100 student allotment did not stack which made deployment and hosting limited). Domain.com's website design did provide the most customizable features which required external tools (or a commercial account) to meet the project scope and user experience.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of the development of our mission statement and further refinement our what we believe our software can mature into with proper support. Deployment both as a professional for NJIT Residence Life package logging and philanthropic for discrete package notification and location identification seems achievable.
What we learned
Requesting assistance through volunteers, executive board members, and sponsors made our small team size manageable and the information gained more impactful.
What's next for The Parcel Panthers
We look forward to smoothing out and applying refinements to our database to be utilized in both a community and professional environment.
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