As an absolute beginner to hackathons, I chose to work on a project that would be helpful in my daily life using the knowledge I had on HTML and CSS which would also challenge me. In this case, it was learning Javascript to make the calculator work. Originally, I wanted to build an online and digital version of the manual flight computer (also known as E6B) that can used by student pilots going through flight training. The E6B is an analog calculating device that is mostly used in flight planning, but can be quite tedious and time consuming to use. Although there are softwares and digital devices which could replace the E6B to make flight planning easier, they're expensive so most student pilots stick with the E6B. There are currently no good digital E6Bs available for free online, so I want to change that. There are many formulas for the calculations used for flight planning so I used this weekend to learn to build a simple calculator first.
I typically have a hard time knowing the amount I should tip, so I wanted to build a tip calculator. I worked on the HTML and CSS parts first as that's what I had a bit of knowledge with. I learned how to insert a select menu and assign different values to the options. I was inspired by the DeltaHacks name tags so I incorporated a gradient background which contained a white box for the calculator itself. The challenges I faced was making the calculator actually work using Javascript, as I have never used it before. I did a lot of googling to learn how to use functions and variables to formulate the functions. The things I had trouble on most was getting the amounts to round to 2 decimal places and to delete the first option of my select menu without it deleting the first option every time, or flashing when I got it to delete only the first option once. It took a lot of trial and error, but perseverance paid off. Although this may be a simple project for more advanced hackers, I am proud of what I was able to do this weekend with what I knew. Next steps will be bringing a digital E6B to life using the things I learned this weekend.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.