-
Item Calculator
-
Quiz Game
-
About Page
-
Travel Info
Inspiration
The Google Developer Student Club Challenge was the origin point of this idea, drawing inspiration from UN Sustainable Development Goal #12 - (Responsible Consumption and Production). We first enjoyed the idea of limiting consumption by creating a calculator which helps you "budget" your carbon "spending" like money.
As this calculator was GPT-powered, the possibilities were endless, and we found ourselves learning so many things about the carbon costs of different things just from playing with it. The calculator ended up being so much fun that we pivoted into focusing on the idea of the calculator tool being a "game" for people to play around with and be made aware of, similar to those single-purpose password security rating sites which were a lot of fun.
What it does
The calculator breaks the input into an item and a quantity and then feeds it into GPT-4 for an estimate of the item's carbon cost using a series of fine-tuned prompts. This is converted into JSON data and then fed back into the calculator's output into the history database, along with a fun fact generated by GPT.
The game randomly picks two things of similar carbon cost and challenges the player to think about carbon cost and decide which one is more carbon-wasteful.
The transit helper uses Google's Google Maps Platform to calculate distances and routes, which enables calculations like carbon spent if taken by car.
How we built it
The project is built with Flask, using Python, HTML, and CSS.
Challenges we ran into
This was our first time working with Flask and many of our plans didn't pan out, because we spent so much time solving issues or generally being inefficient. In the end, as the deadline approached, we had to reassess our project to ensure it was completed in a timely fashion.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
It was a hard decision to pivot the project's function from a tracker to a PSA site but ultimately it paid off in timelier development and a more unified project.
As a first project with Flask, HTML, and CSS, we're all proud of the work we've done making the website.
What we learned
Besides the programming experience we gained in many languages, we also learned the valuable lesson that sometimes your first idea won't work out and you shouldn't be afraid to trade away what you have for something better.
What's next for Carbon Sense
We plan to continue expanding on further avenues for engagement, such as the carbon cost game, in order to allow Carbon Sense to become a stronger tool for awareness.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.