Inspiration
The modern political climate is plagued by heavy partisanship and increasing (and potentially violent) tensions among the political parties and voters. Such a landscape requires something that is able to introduce voters formally and respectfully to the "opposing" opinions so that they may hopefully come to understand and appreciate these perspectives in a manner that is civil, while also being able to reflect upon their own biases. This type of platform was the inspiration for the creation of the Polar Corpus.
What it does
The Polar Corpus is a website that hosts a wealth of information on political candidates, their biases, and voters' perspectives on them. It is meant to be a digital bridge between voters and prospective political candidates. As such, it provides a detailed briefing on these candidates that is equipped with a polling system for the candidates' overall favorability and their partisanship, as well as providing an anonymous commenting service so that voters can discuss these candidates among themselves. Based on the problem described above, it is meant to be a solution to political tension among groups of differing ideologies by providing valid information and giving voters the opportunity to analyze other perspectives in addition to their own.
How I built it
The website was built using Django, equipped with a PostgreSQL database and static HTML and CSS. Artificial Intelligence was used to provide common methods of website design and to navigate Django.
Challenges I ran into
The Django, HTML, and CSS landscapes were relatively new to me, so it was difficult to navigate and learning these resources in the beginning.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I am most proud of overcoming the aforementioned challenges to the point where I was able to fully deploy the website using Django, HTML, and CSS, and to have it designed and function as close to what I initially intended as possible.
What I learned
I learned how to use Django to make deployable websites that rely heavily on database systems.
What's next for The Polar Corpus
I hope to add information about more candidates in the near future. I also hope to improve upon the website's design so that it is more easily navigable, creative, and looks better to the user.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.