VisuWatt

Our survey form
Map view
Example of queried data

Inspiration

Before the hackathon began, we had wanted to implement a database platform into our project, and found MongoDB to be an interesting and new technology to use. The NextEra Energy Efficiency challenge had a compelling prompt that we found would be a good match with our goal of having a database for the backend, while also being less overwhelming in comparison to the AI challenges offered.

What it does

VisuWatt is a web application seeking to educate homeowners about their household energy consumption, how to optimize their household energy consumption, and if applicable, provide educational materials to further accomplish this goal.

How we built it

We built VisuWatt using lots of diverse technologies. For our major technologies, we used MongoDB as our DBMS and backend platform for this application, and Javascript to develop both the front end UI and backend API endpoints. To further accomplish our goal of creating a user friendly experience, we utilized React/NextJS, Pigeon Maps, and Material-UI. To remain within the constraints of a hackathon, we limited ourselves to 10 counties in Florida, sorted from most populous to least populous, and created dummy data for these counties.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges we ran into was tackling a lot of unfamiliar technology, learning on the fly, and balancing prior obligations with developing our application. One notable challenge was connecting to the MongoDB client via our API endpoint, which involved hours of troubleshooting.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our biggest accomplishments relate to our biggest challenges. In the face of difficulty and uncertainty, we stayed determined and overcame the challenges we faced with this unfamiliar technology, and adapted to work with the prior obligations we had.

What we learned

We learned a lot about perseverance. There was a lot of ups and downs during development, but we stuck together and we got it done. Tools like MongoDB and Javascript were new to a few of us, and we learned a lot in particular about clusters, databases, documents, and how to interact with them.

What's next for VisuWatt

We would like to further improve our user interface, and further develop the backend so that the application can be scalable with large amounts of national data.

Built With

javascript
material-ui
mongodb
nextjs
pigeon-maps
react
vercel

Submitted to

Knight Hacks VII

Created by

I created the dummy data and designed the MongoDB collection schema for our project. Though difficult, it was great getting experience with a new tool.

Ross McTaggart
I worked on the front-end development of the Florida map, incorporating its interactivity with counties. Also contributed to work on the Mongo database for our project, creating the cluster, databases, and collections for each county.

Derek Foster
I worked on expanding the boilerplate setup and creating a better UI. The more defined version of the UI makes the website look more user-friendly, and along with this, the seamless switch between the surveys allows for proper user navigation.

Aamogh Sawant
I spent part of this weekend in a project manager role. I helped my team members with their tasks and tools. I handled creating the project skeleton (NextJS & configuring the Altlas Cluster). I focused on the backend: developing the API endpoint, connecting to the client, and tying it to the frontend by rendering request data. It was a challenge to connect the instance, but I learned a lot.

Arianna Loucks