WhereIsParking.Space

Inspiration

Everyone who drives has parked a car. We were inspired to make a very interesting project about this very uninteresting activity.

What it does

It simulates a parking lot and displays many interesting vehicles while helping new drivers to identify open parking spots.

How we built it

We built the final project using JavaScript and HTML on a Domain.com domain. This is a far cry from our original attempt, which involved a Python application using a camera to find open parking spaces and a mobile application that provided users with a view of open spaces.

Challenges we ran into

When we began to investigate image recognition, we realized we weren't up to the task of creating an application using openCV2, which is a useful but very confusing piece of software. Another major challenge that caused us to pivot to a different end goal was setting up our software to communicate correctly with Google Cloud APIs.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of the end product, of course, but we're also proud of steps we made along the way. Getting data to send correctly to Google Cloud was a huge accomplishment, and we all felt proud when we were able to transfer information to Google.

What we learned

We learned to analyze our progress and, if needed, pivot quickly to a different idea to make productive use of our time if the current avenue won't lead to a good end product. We learned a lot about Google Cloud APIs, as well as a lot about project organization and management, as well as how to handle failures by not giving up but by making good use of the time we have left.

What's next for WhereIsParking.Space

In an ideal world, we would sell our product to Google for a large profit. Realistically, in the future, it probably won't ever be more than the lessons we learned as we built this project.