We began early by brainstorming a slew of problems that we wanted to try to address using our project. We decided that we wanted to focus on helping both policy makers and the general public make informed decisions based on the information available to them. However, at the same time we were concerned with the high amount of privacy breaches that government entities have been perpetrating in the past couple of years. We wanted to ensure that our application did not rely too heavily on using location tracking and other invasive methods of gathering data.

Raymond’s Role:

Raymond created the framing and mockups of what our application and website would look like. He worked on the front end of the application using tools such as mockup.io. Raymond ensured that the application would be able to look as sleek as possible. He also put together parts of the presentation and wrote the statement on how our application wanted to protect the privacy of users. Finally, Raymond also helped with brainstorming what the algorithm for the viral index would consist of. He studied the documentation for the GIBS API in order to learn how to use NASA data in the final application .

Bridget’s Role:

Bridget worked on the front development for the public risk calculator app. She used a graphics program in Java to build the screen so it was user friendly and informative. She created working and prototype methods for user input, risk calculation, and a button that the user presses to reveal their risk score. The application was designed to be simpler for ease of public use. Spencer designed a background for the app in photoshop that made it look more professional and inviting to the user. The risk calculator prototype is designed to take the user’s address and use map and night light brightness data in addition to public health records and recommendations to come up with an easy to understand assessment of COVID-19 risk in the area. This simple but informative tool was inspired by the website Snow Day Calculator, that helps children find out the percent chance of a snow day based on local weather data. The recommendations of direct public actions like wearing a mask and social distancing could serve as a more direct and tailored advice that users may be more inclined to follow than complex figures.

Desiree’s Role:

Desiree helped the team in the brainstorming process and chose a route to pursue in our solution to Light the Path. Desiree worked through the earth data on the NASA website. She found relevant maps including NO2, light, and heat. Each of these maps pointed to a pattern that can be found in places where the pandemic and the spread of COVID-19 have been evident. These maps showed how widespread the disease is and why it should be taken more seriously. Desiree also helped in creating a portion of the presentation which showed a comparison between two major cities that have been affected by Coronavirus.

Robert’s Role:

Robert developed a prototype algorithm for determining public risk from light radiance at nighttime. We first used the Global Imagery Browse Services API to get nighttime images. We further split the images into subsections due to the images covering a large land area. From there: we analyze the plot of land we are interested in, getting the average brightness by averaging the greyscale value of all the pixels. We also get the average brightness from the last year, sampling once each month. Using both the average brightness and last year’s average brightness, we perform some inferences. Namely, we assume that current brightness is a good indicator of population density. In addition, we use the difference between last year’s average brightness and the current brightness as a measure of how well the population is reducing activity.  We then generate an estimated risk index with these two numbers.

Chelsea’s Role:

Brainstormed with team members on the project's objectives. Chelsea defined Brite Solar’s branding guidelines, chose different shades of blue to ensure the confidence in the information provided by Brite Solar. Chelsea researched real-life creations and industrial designs to support the creation of the Bride Solar logo. Managed Brite Solar’s twitter account, using a five-color palette to develop a colorful header, logo, and informative tweets that signify the Bride Solar’s branding guidelines. Created sleek and informative tweets to notify the user audience of the team's project progress. In addition, she designed friendly introduction tweets to introduce all the team members that were a part of the group.

Spencers Role:

Spencer helped to design the artwork of the app and made sure to make the project look presentable. He started by working with various images on photoshop. First, it was deciding what color the background should be. The decision ended up being a gradient yellow background. He decided to put some more little family-friendly images around the edges of the border, in order to further project the purpose of the app. He found a little heart icon with a family, which represents keeping your loved ones close. The Image of the earth wearing a mask represents how this pandemic isn’t just a one country situation, as it is a global issue, and that we as humans are in this together, and all should be doing our part by at least wearing a mask. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1upHrzKlOHmJ4gT0wCg_hQcEi5Yt94hXl3E2Pd36MLA4/edit?usp=sharing

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/pathfinders/covid-19/environmental-impacts

https://www.google.com/amp/s/sloanreview.mit.edu/article/monitoring-the-covid-19-crisis-from-space/amp

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/collaborate/open-data-services-and-software/api/gibs-api

https://www.snowdaycalculator.com/calculator.php

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/jtf/javadoc/complete/acm/program/GraphicsProgram.html