DEADline

Inspiration

I was devastated when I missed one of my assignment deadlines because I forgot to check my Canvas page! The deadline was in such small font that I missed it easily. Furthermore, there are multiple websites for assignment submission and we have to check them one by one and tediously copy them down. Why spend more time checking deadlines when you can spend the time doing homework? #myHeartIsInTheWork motivates us to automate this task to fulfill our calling of doing work that matters.

What it does

DEADline helps to collate deadlines from CMU websites such as Gradescope and Canvas. What's best is that it is all done in the background automatically! DEADline is a Chrome extension that does web scraping. Upon logging in to the school assignment websites, DEADline does its job of quietly keeping track of all the deadlines! The deadlines are then displayed on a user friendly webpage that clearly lists out your classes and upcoming deadlines for each assignment.

How I built it

We built it using Javascript for web scraping of HTML DOM elements, bootstrap and HTML for GUI design.

Challenges I ran into

We had to identify the assignments whose deadlines were approaching and filter out those that have already been submitted. We also had to navigate through the complex HTML DOM elements to find our hidden deadlines. This is especially challenging as each website has its own architecture.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We managed to work through the whole process from web scraping to data collation to displaying on the UI. It works and it is really something we are going to use it to ensure that out heart is in the true work!

What I learned

We learnt how to build a Chrome extension and how to do web scraping. Being new to development, working on the GUI was a good learning process too. Most importantly, we learnt to work together as a team. Team work makes the dream work.