Course Schedule Maker

Inspiration

Life often presents many choices. Some have a bigger impact on our future than others. From the dawn of time, there was always an unwritten rule among students about the importance of college schedules. Before the start of each semester, they will always spend hours configuring all their possible schedules the old-fashioned way on an Excel spreadsheet only to realize on the registration day that their perfect timetable has been stolen by someone with quicker wifi. That is why we decided to program an advanced schedule maker that allows students to quickly design optimal schedules in preparation of course selection day.

What it does

The web application is very easy to use. The user enters a course code in the search bar and a list of the available courses will be shown. Then, by selecting a specific section, a color corresponding to the course will automatically fill in the time it takes in the schedule. Then, the user can select other courses he desires to have and see these fill in the timetable. The courses of the Winter 2022 semester at Marianopolis College and its schedules are already pre programmed in the program. This visual support makes the conception of a schedule more manageable and intuitive. After obtaining a satisfactory schedule, the reset button allows the user to start over and try out other combinations.

How we built it

To build the program, we used a combination of HTML, CSS and Javascript. HTML provides the basic structure of the site. CSS was used for formatting, layout and styling. Javascript was used to control the behavior of different elements and the interactive aspect with the user. We also used Python to organize and get the bulk data related to the Winter 2022 courses.

Challenges we ran into

Most of us started programming with Python, so learning and implementing HTML, CSS and Javascript in a short period of time was a fun challenge. The different syntax for each language was confusing but we realized that every language had a lot more in common with every other language than we thought.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The implementation of colors in our schedule. The fact we preprogrammed in all the Winter 2022 Marianopolis semester courses

What we learned

We learnt about the uses of HTML, CSS and Javascript and the importance of each to design a functional and pretty web application. We also learned the importance of project planning in order to accurately gauge what is feasible and how to approach the completion of the whole project. Many unexpected problems in the form of bugs taught us to plan for failure and to make use of every resource possible, such as web guides, videos and more experienced people.