Flight Carbon Calculator

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  Screen capture of our program running

Inspiration

• We wanted to create an app to allow users to check the theorized carbon emissions of plane flights to and from different airports so that people might be cognizant about the side effects of the flight travels that occur every single day. We were inspired by applications that track celebrities' individual private flights, most notably Taylor Swift's.

What it does

• It allows the user to choose from a database of airport locations to pick one to be the origin point (marked in blue) and the other the destination (marked in red). The program will the generate a line between the two and the total emissions released if the user clicks the "Calculate Emissions" button during the flight as well as how many trees should be planted to offset it. If the user so desires, they could add together the calculated emissions together with the "+ Save Trip" button and eventually clear the emissions data with the "- Clear Total" button.

How we built it

• We built it using javascript, CSS, and Bulma and by using the React framework and Node.js to provide the baseline of our program. We used the leaflet.js API to create our map for the tracker.

Challenges we ran into

• We had some issues initially with ensuring that the location markers were set to the right corresponding location. For example, before fixing the issue (a conflict between two of the library APIs), the London airport was picture on the map in Northern India, and Beijing's airport in Indochina, much to our amusement but mostly consternation.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• We're proud to have created a simple and easy to use app within the first day that can calculate the total emissions per each theoretical plane flight.

What we learned

• We learned how to better use GitHub, communicate in a team setting, and how to use various APIs together to create something new and useful.

What's next for Flight Carbon Calculator

• We could offer more tangible options for the user to either immediately or lead to immediate action to offset their carbon emissions (such as a button to buy trees then and there), which would be helpful for the user to be aware of not only for their concern and awareness but also for the environment of the world. Or we could add other types of transportation like cars, trains, ships, and other carbon-emitting vehicles to the tracker to accommodate those that do not travel on planes and to see how the carbon emissions of different vehicles compared to one another.

Built With

• css
• html
• javascript
• leaflet.js
• node.js
• openstreetmap
• react