Hello Space

The world is yours to explore

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Inspiration

We were inspired by how popular skywatching has become. Remember the solar eclipse in 2019 that, according to Forbes, about 215 million Americans watched? Only around 12 million saw a total solar eclipse. We wanted to find a way to increase the number of people who can see a full celestial event.

What it does

Our hack helps people who don’t know or are having trouble finding great locations for skywatching locate one near them, and lets these individuals meet up with others who share their passion of skywatching, encouraging group solidarity.

How we built it

On the front end, we used CSS, HTML, and JS, mainly for UI design and API integration. On the back end, it was all Java and Python. We had Java with Spring framework set up request controllers, security, APIs, and services to access external APIs, while Python and Flask allowed us to build our REST API.

Challenges we ran into

We came across several challenges while building Hello Space. While coding, at times, half of our PC's were slowing down and not performing properly. It was completely random and unpredictable too. Moreover, we did not have enough time to implement the rocket launch API. Last but not least, as not all of us have worked with these APIs, we had to learn how to use and implement them into Hello Space.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were impressed by the successful implementation of various APIs we used on the back end, despite the difficulty we had building and integrating them. On the front end, our site looks visually appealing. Overall, we believe that we did a great job combining the two to ensure a smooth UX experience.

What we learned

By building Hello Space, we learned how to work with several different applications, such as Java EE and Sublime. Moreover, we were introduced to what a REST API is and does. As we are not too experienced working with the Google Maps API, we were able to learn how to use it and implement the geolocation feature into our webapp, to determine the user’s location.

What's next for Hello Space

We're planning on adding 3D visuals for some upcoming celestial events, like a blue moon spinning on an axis. A merchandise page would be cool; supporters could buy space-themed merch with our logo on it. Last but not least, we would like to host our webapp to a domain.

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