Inspiration
When people discuss climate change, one of the first problems to come to mind is carbon dioxide. Rising carbon dioxide emissions is one of the greatest factors contributing to our warming planet. Moreover, carbon dioxide emissions and other forms of air pollution are linked to various health hazards. Some studies indicate that air pollution is even linked to an increased risk for contracting COVID-19. To safeguard our current health and plan for our planet’s future, we decided to make this website.
What it does
Our original intention was to design a fully-functioning heat map where users are able to put in 3 inputs, longitude and latitude (to determine where they receive their CO2 levels) and the CO2 concentration in the area where they recorded it to receive information about CO2 levels in their area. However, due to the time constraints of the hackathon, we decided to do a mockup instead where the longitude and latitude variables are replaced by “x” and “y” variables and the graph is replaced by a static image. This mockup is not fully functional, but demonstrates the basic idea of our project.
Challenges we ran into and how we resolved them
When designing our website, we originally attempted to implement a real-time heat map showing how high the CO2 concentration is in various regions across the world. However, we found out that creating such a map is not feasible with the time allocated to us. Our mockup includes a python program that creates a static image that acts as the mockup of the CO2 map; this demonstrates that it’s possible to create our CO2 heat map idea.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of being able to finish this project. Despite the fact that we were all new to hackathons and the fact that some of us have never met each other before, we were able to work together effectively and produce a presentable project.
What we learned
We have learned that accurately using latitude and longitude values is surprisingly challenging. To do so, we would have had to simulate the entire globe (which was not a reasonable task within the time limits of this project).
What's next for Project Carbon Mapping
If we expand the scope of this project, we could develop a full-on graphical survey application. By displaying data from all over the world on our website, we would be able to provide valuable information for scientists and researchers. Alternatively, we could narrow the scope of this project to measuring CO2 levels inside individual buildings. This would help people on a more individual basis, alerting those inside the building when CO2 levels reach potentially hazardous levels.
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