2014 (Fall) Project 3

Right Here, Right Now

Project alpha version due 11/10 at 8:59 pm Chicago time
Project final version due 11/24 at 8:59 pm Chicago time

Project 3 will be the second group project and the focus here will be on real-time (or near real time) data in Chicago.
 

New groups will be formed for Project 3 and you can't work with any of the people you worked with in Project 2. The idea here is to work with new people and see different ways to do parts of the project.
I will create groups for people that do not form groups on their own by 10/31. Again the standard group size will be 3 or 4 people per group. Note that I may need to re-shuffle people in some of the groups if everyone doesn't have new people to work with, so please try and choose your groups early.
 
As with Project 2 you should very quickly set up a web page for your new group project and send the URL to andy. Each Friday of the project each team member should post on the project web site an overview of what he/she did on the project that week.



Data Sources:

311 - Potholes - https://data.cityofchicago.org/Service-Requests/311-Service-Requests-Pot-Holes-Reported/7as2-ds3y
311 - Abandoned Vehicles - https://data.cityofchicago.org/Service-Requests/311-Service-Requests-Abandoned-Vehicles/3c9v-pnva
311 - Street Lights all out - https://data.cityofchicago.org/Service-Requests/311-Service-Requests-Street-Lights-All-Out/zuxi-7xem
311 - street lights 1 out - https://data.cityofchicago.org/Service-Requests/311-Service-Requests-Street-Lights-One-Out/3aav-uy2v
crime 2001 to present - https://data.cityofchicago.org/Public-Safety/Crimes-2001-to-present/ijzp-q8t2 (1 week old and no murders)

Divvy Bike station current status - http://www.divvybikes.com/stations/json/

CTA Bus locations - http://www.transitchicago.com/developers/bustracker.aspx


weather data for Chicago - http://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/d/docs?d=resources/code-samples


As with all the projects your app will be evaluated running full screen on the classroom wall.




In this project we are going to take a look at live data from the Chicago area, integrating a variety of sources onto a single leaflet map to help users make decisions about their travel plans. Projects 1 and 2 enabled their users to look for interesting features or trends in older data; the idea here is to give the user more timely data in order to make decisions. Right now we can get real-time weather, real-time automobile traffic, information on bike availability, etc. How can that data be integrated to allow the user to make more informed choices for how they want to get from point A to point B.



For a C you need ...


For a B you need to add ...


For an A you need to add ...





There are two deadlines for this project. By the first deadline you should have implemented the initial screen layout of your application and have the basic functionality allowing the user to perform an example of the various 'C' functionality. This will make sure that your group is on track and that you can focus on making a good interface and set of visualizations, not just functional ones. Personally, I think you should have the entire C functionality done at that point if you are going for an A on the project as a whole. You should make this version of the interface available on your group project page.

You should create a set of web pages that describe your work on the project. This should include:

all of which should have plenty of screenshots with meaningful captions. Web pages like this can be very helpful later on in helping you build up a portfolio of your work when you start looking for a job so please put some effort into it.

Be sure to document any external libraries or tools that you make use of - give credit where credit is due.

You should also create a 2-3 minute YouTube video showing the use of your application including narration with decent audio quality. That video should be in a very obvious place on your main project web page. The easiest way to do this is to use a screen-capture tool while interacting with your application, though you will most likely find its useful to do some editing afterwards to tighten the video up. Its also a good idea to have a video like this available as a backup during your presentation just in case of gremlins.
You may want to shoot this video on the wall itself from a phone with one of your team members interacting.

The web page including screen snapshots and video need to be done by the deadline so be sure to leave enough time to get that work done.

I will be linking your web page to the course notes so please send me a nice 1920 x 540 jpg image of your visualization for the web. This should be named p3.<group_number>.jpg or png. 

When the project is done, each person in the group should also send Andy a private email with no one else cc'd ranking your coworkers on the project on a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high) in terms of how good a coworker they were on the project. If you never want to work with them again, give them a 1. If this person would be a first choice for a partner on a future project then give them a 5. If they did what was expected but nothing particularly good or bad then give them a 3. By default your score should be 3 unless you have a particular reason to increase or decrease the number. Please confine your responses to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and no 1/3ds or .5s please. We will average out all these scores for projects 2 through 3 and keep them in mind when assigning final grades to projects 2 through 3.

Each group will show their visualization to the class and describe its features. This allows everyone to see a variety of solutions to the problem, and a variety of implementations. Rehearse your presentation ... several times. All team members are expected to participate equally in that presentation.




last revision 10/24/14