Inspiration
I always wanted to do an environmental project at this hackathon. While scrolling over some of the previous submissions, I noticed that one environmental factor not being covered as much was the oceans. So, I searched for APIs and datasets and thought of a unique idea.
What it does
In WorldSurf, you can input any coordinates in the ocean, and the website will display a visualization of the waves and other weather data (mostly to scale, as well).
How we built it
The API the app relies on is called stormglass. It gives weather and sea state information for any point in the ocean. The majority of the app is on the frontend to visualize this information. A very simple backend with Node.js is used to make requests to the API and protect the API key.
Challenges we ran into
The stormglass API has a lot of limitations in the free tier. It allows a maximum of 10 requests per day. So, this made it difficult to test the application. Additionally, it gets data for a massive range of times, even though we only need the current time.
The frontend took up the vast majority of the development time, and getting it to work responsively was probably the main reason why the app went unfinished.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
The frontend is coming along. I think the way I plan to visualize it will help users a lot. Also, the app is simple. There are no logins or accounts. All you need to do is type in coordinates and click a button. The idea is expandable due to the data provided the API. I am proud of making it this far on the project, even though it wasn't planned to be a solo endeavor.
What we learned
This was genuinely my first time working on a backend. I had to learn Node.js in only a couple hours. Also, firebase was considered at first, and I learned a bit about how that works. The challenging frontend pushed my HTML/CSS skills further than before.
What's next for WorldSurf
The project is completely unfinished right now. The most glaring issue is the backend, which is not in a working state. The visualization for the frontend is not ready yet, so that must be worked on as well. As for more ambitious ideas, we could try to visualize the other data provided by the API (not just waves). This would give the user a complete view of the sea conditions.
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