
Introduction
Our project, the Hopeful-Cosmos App is a web-based application that allows site visitors to 1) enter a wish that is then assigned to a unique star. This star is then added to the canvas or “universe” and displays an information card describing the following information collected from the visitor:
- Name
- State
- Country
- Star name
- Wish
This information is then stored in our database and can later be explored by other users. As a project focus, we wanted to bring two main features to fruition: 1) the ability to store and display wish information and 2) the ability to recall wishes and explore the wishes of others. I worked on project management, group documentation, and assisted with the front-end. Mo worked on the front-end. Anthony worked on the front-end and back-end.
The purpose of our project was simply to make a feel-good app that would bring people back to the joys of making a wish for something (whether at a wishing well or wishing upon a star). It is intended for use by the general public. It is suitable for both children and adult visitors.
Why I chose to work on this project
Two things that I appreciate in life are positivity and simplicity. When Anthony — our teammate who originally proposed the app — suggested making this I immediately thought of joyful moments standing at the wishing well as a child, making a wish, and tossing in a penny or a dime. It was fun, personal, and memorable. I was extremely excited to attempt bringing that experience through a web application.
Summarize what you’ve accomplished with your project
Ultimately, we succeeded in getting out app to ingest and store wishes, display a star card, and search through the wishes of others.
Our dataflow is as follows:
- For the Frontend we chose to use HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. We opted not to use bootstrap as heavily because we could not successfully implement it the way we thought we’d be able to. For the backend we used Nginx, Python, JQuery and Flask. We opted not use PHP, because we wanted to dedicate our time to solidifying our understanding of JavaScript.
Here are some examples of some of the features we implemented:
- Feature: Google Maps Geolocation API. It is functionality that has value for the user and makes it easier to collect location data that can be later used to implement searching features.
- Feature: The website is responsive and compatible with mobile with the Chrome app. This means users can access the project from a mobile view if using Chrome.
- Feature: Wish Exploration. The users on our site have the ability to explore wishes posted by other users.
Our most difficult technical challenge
One of the most difficult technical challenges was trying to get the star cards to display. When we initially started the project, we thought we’d be able to display a star card that would appear immediately upon the user’s submission of the wish form. Then we wanted the star cards for each wish to be accessible upon clicking on that wish. Thus, if I were to submit a wish, upon my submission a special star card would appear displaying the information that I just input and informing me that my wish was successfully submitted. Then if I wanted to “explore the universe,” I would be able to randomly click on any star and see its star card. This seemed like an easy enough feature to implement. However, this proved to be the most difficult to figure out.
So, one thing that we realized is that we actually had to break the card display into components. First, we needed to get the card associated with each individual star. Then we needed to display a form with the correct star information for that particular card.
Share what you’ve learned
Again, favor verbosity. Suggestions for what to write about here:
- Technical take-aways
- JQuery was a tremendously powerful tool through which we implemented a large portion of our project. Learning more about the tool and th
- What you might do differently
- The
- What you learned about yourself as an engineer
- How this project informs your engineering path in the future
- Confirm or question any beliefs you held prior to this project (e.g. “Actually, emacs is a really powerful editor and I can understand why it is preferable to vim.”)
About Me
Ty is an entrepreneur focused on harnessing the power of big data and artificial intelligence to build and grow small businesses in the US — helping them to better compete and impact local economies. Ty is also a proud veteran of the US Marine Corps and former SCORE counselor. Her passions include basketball (Go Warriors!), investing, and avocado toast.
Link with Ty:
