Inspiration
Ventus formed at the unlikeliest of crossroads- four college freshman with little to none coding experience, but aspired to dream big. We noticed that it is difficult to accurately gauge a return on investment in renewable energy, especially wind power, and realized that an gargantuan amount of data is publicly available from the US government through NOAA, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Putting two and two together, we strive to simplify swaths of data to a single output with massive repercussions, both to homeowners and to the renewable energy movement.
What it does
Ventus draws upon NOAA's database of weather observation sites to parse through thousands of data entries to calculate the average wind speed at that location. Next, Ventus will pass that data through calculations that will determine a more precise estimate of the return on investment.
How we built it
We used NOAA's v2 API to get data from the database, and then coded a framework as well as a user-friendly interface in Java.
Challenges we ran into
Everything. Everything was a challenge. Especially the NOAA API, because it's probably from the nineties. Oh, and no documentation. Thanks Obama.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
IT COMPILES AND RUNS AND WORKS. Also, our team didn't ragequit. That would have be bad.
What we learned
We learned how to use API's and also how to create a user interface in Java.
What's next for Ventus
We are planning to use existing framework to extract solar radiation data from NOAA, which make adding on a solar option extremely easy. Another step would be to use Google Map's API in order to help search for the nearest stations more effectively as well as perhaps creating a graphics interface that could display regions of the map and help users visualize patterns.
Built With
- httpclient
- java
- noaa-api
- tears
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