High-Level Project Summary
Climate change disasters are responsible for the death of around 5 million people per year. Almost 10% of global deaths can be attributed to abnormally hot or cold temperatures, according to new research linking extreme weather to mortality.A large disaster is sometimes not predicted in advance which causes many deaths as people find themselves unprepared. In order to counter this problem, we thought about an application that uses data from different sources and keeps the user safe by notifying him/her if there's a high risk of an incident occurring in the city he lives in.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
Our app is a tool that will keep you constantly updated about climate change consequences in your area.
Our backend fetches multiple APIs and public datasets (see **Source** category below) to obtain climatic variables (temperature, humidity, wind direction and speed, water level, air quality index, etc...) specific to your region.
It then passes these variables to a battery of tests, that look for all kinds of climate/ecological problems such as air pollution, wildfires near you, brutal increases of temperatures in the next few days, (etc ...) and sends you an alert for every problem we find!
This way, people can **prepare themselves for big heatwaves, stay informed of local wildfires, sea level increase, and more generally, they can be more aware of how climate is changing in their area.**
Space Agency Data
## Sources
(APIs and relevant datasets)
- https://docs.ambeedata.com/#aq-intro
- https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
- https://www.lagons-plages.com/humidite-tropiques.php
- https://m3o.com/weather/api#Now
We used these APIs to collect relevant climatic parameters, such as today's and upcoming's temperatures, humidity %, wind speed, air quality, CO2 concentration, and many others.
We then gave this data as an input to a battery of tests, which look for all kinds of climate/ecological problems such as air pollution, wildfires near you, brutal increases of temperatures in the next few days, (etc ...) and sends the users an alert for every problem found!
Other (Research papers and other documents that inspired us, and on which we based our tests while searching for ecological problems related to climate change)
- http://www.airqualityontario.com/science/aqi_description.php
- https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/
- https://www.cdc.gov/pictureofamerica/pdfs/picture_of_america_heat-related_illness.pdf
- https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/heatindex.shtml (We implemented, in Java, an algorithm that calculates the heat index by taking the temperature and humidity level as inputs. We then used this index to determine if an important heatwave will soon take place, and prevent the users and give them some recommendations (drinking water, staying home)
Hackathon Journey
## Challenges we ran into
* **First time creating a desktop app:** It was difficult to learn so many new technologies in just 24 hours and to develop a fully functional project, but we had fun and learned many new things!
* **Finding relevant datasets and API:** We had an entire subteam of 3 members dedicated to searching for relevant datasets. Many data found online was inaccurate or didn't provide the exact informations we needed. Therefore, we had to spend a good amount of time looking things up and figuring out which APIs and datasets to use
## Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Learning how to develop a desktop app in such a short time span
- Using the java built-in JSON serializer was tricky.
- The app works very smoothly (no lag at all), and the backend is doing its job correctly! We didn't expect it to work that well to be honest.
-We find many relevant datasets and APIs, containing accurate data that corresponds exactly to our needs
## What we learned
- Spring
- React
- Electron.js
- Desktop app development
## What's next for Ethical Targeting
- Finalizing this prototype version
- Add advanced search for other cities/countries, and correcting some bugs (+- 1month)
- Release the beta version of our app and invite a limited number of beta testers
- Collect their feedback and implement them in our app, while enhancing the UI and the server's performance
- Release our app and start working on a website and a mobile app as well
References
**Technologies used**
- [Spring Boot](https://spring.io/projects/spring-boot)
- [Maven](https://maven.apache.org/)
- [Tomcat](https://tomcat.apache.org/)
- [elenctronJs](https://www.electronjs.org/)
- [React Js](https://fr.reactjs.org/)
- [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/)
## Sources
- https://docs.ambeedata.com/#aq-intro
- https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
- http://www.airqualityontario.com/science/aqi_description.php
- https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/
- https://www.cdc.gov/pictureofamerica/pdfs/picture_of_america_heat-related_illness.pdf
- https://www.lagons-plages.com/humidite-tropiques.php
- https://m3o.com/weather/api#Now
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.