About me

Names: Srishty Mittal and Anshima Chaudhary

Affiliation: Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, University of Delhi

Location: New Delhi, India

Email: mittalmisc@gmail.com, anshima.111@gmail.com

Both of us are second year students pursuing Bachelor's Degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Computer Science Engineering respectively.

Project description:

Abstract/summary (<20 words):

To enhance user experience and provide extensive network to Public Labs.

Problem:

Public Labs is a great platform to discuss DIY methods to solve environmental problems. With upcoming climatic challenges posing a grave threat to the communities worldwide, it is imperative for us to always look for innovative solutions. I deeply resonated with the pillars of public labs mentioned on the website itself,

"II. The Collaboration :-

We are an open network of community organizers, educators, technologists and researchers working to create low cost solutions for monitoring air, water and land.

Discover, collaborate on, and contribute to locally important matters with the support of a global community."

However, there is a need to expand the horizons of public lab and connect it with the entrepreneurs for increased number of collaborations and integrating their techniques with the existing DIY methods currently on Public labs org. It will not only benefit Public Labs in terms of content creation but also improving user-experience.

IMPLEMENTATION :

We plan to follow a three tier approach to increase the to integrate entrepreneurs, local communities and Public Lab together:

1. A new tab for "Collaboration:
2. Under the 'Discover methods' option - which displays the methods being developed by Public Lab contributors; there is a need to connect with the entrepreneurs associated with environment to aggravate the ease of making DIY toolkits and increasing the feasibility and viability of the products

3. we will also look for APIs to gather information about these startups

4. Region-specific linkage with Google Map:

5. The challenges experienced by nations varies tremendously with the geographic and demographics of the region, hence for a visitor to the public labs website, google map showing the community events, NGOs and products/toolkits available near them would be an efficient way of optimizing User Experience;

6. The location of the user could be linked through Google Maps. The aim of this would be to link the public lab audience of researchers and environment enthusiasts with entrepreneurs working in the same field in the user's proximity, a real-time google map display of activities such as 'The Barnraising' and workshops;

7. Improving User Experience:

8. This would include making changes in the UI so as to readily update the user with recent activities in the form of a carousel of pictures and also to make the website easier to navigate
9. Working on more relevant adwords to be included and improve existing search-terms by not hard-coding them; making it more flexible and in coherence with the diversity of search terms a user enters
10. Create a navigation toolbar which would be the control point that links the user to sections within the website. The toolbar will comprise of the tabs under the "get involved" part of the website

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Timeline & milestones

Week 1 (July 1 to July 8): Comprehending the codebase of the website, getting a thorough understanding of the operations, reach and scope of the Public Labs Community

Week 2 and 3 (July 9 to July 22): Understanding the Public Labs' API and looking for other APIs to connect with concerned entities and startups;

Week 4 (July 23 to July 29): Creating new tab(s) 'Collaboration' for increasing the interactiveness of the website by using the gathered content in week 2 and 3

Week 5 (July 30 to August 5): Linkage of google maps and working on a mapped-display of activities and 'attend an event' section of Public Lab

Week 6 and 7: (August 6 to August 12): Working on the frontend to improve User-Experience by incorporating navigation toolbars, keeping relevant posts on the homepage based on popularity, making efficient use of already existing CTA (call to action) buttons and introducing new ones;

Week 8 and 9: 2 weeks(August 20 to September 2): Reviewing of the modifications or additions/deletions in the codebase so far;

Week 10: (September 3 to September 9): Debugging and final testing

Week 11:(September 10 to September 16): Final submission of project and code evaluation

Needs

Our needs are available to us on the Internet and on our machines. We would also need the guidance of our mentor and the reviews of the community.

First-time contribution

Both of us have recently begun with open source contributions. Currently, we have made commits, putting our projects on github, inviting open source contributors to suggest improvements on them. However, we have recently started to get familiar with solving issues via pull requests and their merging. We haven't made many contributions so far but we are really looking forward to gradually make significant contributions as soon as possible.

Teamwork

Being roommates since the beginning of college and having a great compatibility is one of the key factors which will help us to ideate, plan and execute our project work impeccably. A coherent environment of mutual learning has always helped both of us and we are very much familiar with each others' strengths and weaknesses in all aspects, thus proving to be a great team for the task.

Passion

Public Labs allows one to learn without any barriers and to connect with people having new ideas, creative projects worldwide. It motivates us to make more and more contribution. In addition, being direct victims of severe environmental problems, we feel responsible to do our bit in the fight against climate change.

Audience

Both of us feel that bringing technologies and techniques together would make the world a better place to live in for everyone - the community, the public, and the entrepreneurs.

Commitment

If we get selected, we would be completely devoted to our project, before, during and after the summer. We are driven towards environmental issues and hence would see this to the end.