AMaizeing

One of the most interesting problems that I heard about the agriculture industry was how many farmers are forced into a pickle. Many farmers have to choose between incurring huge amounts of debt to set up large automated farms, or incurring less debt via a smaller manual farm. Especially in the former, farmers can take entire lifetimes to pay off their debt, so their children can live without their financial burden. I saw how hard these people work as an inspiration, and as such, tried to think of ways we could help them reduce costs in the long run.

I connected this motivation with another observation from my summers spent on a farm in rural Quebec. Many basic irrigation systems provide a set amount of water on a scheduled basis, without regard to environmental "gifts", such as the rain. Why not try to incorporate this into how irrigation systems worked? We have national weather systems that can predict with relative accuracy. So if we know there's going to be heavy rainfall in the future, why not take that into consideration? Also, how do we make this more accessible than simply looking up the weather?

Those are just some of the questions I hoped to answer with my project: A web application that uses weather patterns and location data, to determine how much water is needed for your crops!

I built this project by using javascript and The Weather Network's API in combination.

The largest challenge I faced while writing this program was how I had to learn everything I used for this program from scratch, over the course of the 36 hours of this hackathon. It lead to many fears about deadlines (and this shortened devpost), but I am also very relieved that with the support of other fellow hackers and mentors, I was able to come up with something I can present to you!

Aside from what I've learned about javascript, one of the largest lessons I've learned from this project is how much being open about your ideas can lead to both a feeling of vulnerability, but also growth. It was scary working on this project alone, but opening myself to others has really shown the value of collaboration and helping eachother out.

Built With

• html
• html5
• javascript
• the-weather-network-api