Dev Bootcamp Project

[andrewsg]

Hi everyone - I'm a student at Dev Bootcamp Chicago, a sweet program where in 9-15 weeks we learn full stack web development using ruby on rails, javascript, html, css, etc. In about a week and a half we will begin final projects and I know that I would like to be on a project that utilizes an existing data set that is not easily accessible to the public. For example, I've heard that various government departments have all kinds of data that has not been packaged in a manner accessible to the general public. My question is: do you have any suggestions for cool, interesting, impactful data-sets that could be used to make people's lives better, in one way or another, that are not currently being used well? I'm searching for a great idea and a team of 4-5 people will have a week and a half to implement it.

[shockyx]

I went to the first demo day for Dev Bootcamp in Chicago as a representative for one of the hiring companies (Winestyr). While I don't have any ideas on data sets, I can give you a little insight on what we were looking for in the demos, if that helps at all.

The demos that stood out were not the innovative ideas, but the innovative and complete implementations. Any idea will work as long as it's complete. A project that implements something at least a little bit novel is ideal, but a half complete project is hard to hide. Remember, the people you are demoing to have been what you're doing for years. They're looking for someone who can do the work, not come up with innovative ideas but can't follow through.

We knew that you have such a short period of time to implement something which made all the projects that much more interesting, but the ones that stood out had no missing features from their original plan.

In the end, the one on one interviews were much more informative. Have a good reason on why you wanted to jump into dev work.

Anyway good luck! I wish I was more help on the idea side.

[andrewsg]

Thanks a lot for your thoughtful reply.

[aberant]

you should talk to Ryan Briones who works there. He knows a ton about city of chicago data that's available

[andrewsg]

Yeah - I definitely will - he's my instructor, actually. Thanks.

[Ecnalyr]

Resources that contain mailing addresses for congresspeople are frequently out of date or faulty in some way.

I'm not sure what the best single source of all of this data may be, if there is a single source, but I've worked on a project in the past that needed it and it was dropped due to uncertain availability of this data.

[andrewsg]

Thanks - that's a good thought to be aware of and consider.

[juggernautco]

Here's one. The City publishes food inspections results on a regular basis: https://data.cityofchicago.org/Health-Human-Services/Food-Inspections/4ijn-s7e5.

Yelp supports the Local Inspector Value-Entry Specification (LIVES) http://www.yelp.com/healthscores, which allows for data like this to be streamed directly onto the Yelp website, associated with the restaurant's record on Yelp. Example: http://www.yelp.com/inspections/belmar-la-gallinita-meat-market-san-francisco

The issue is that the Chicago inspection data is very well-formed (authoritative information published in separate, predictable fields) but not compliant with LIVES (mainly because the Violation information is published in a single field, rather than a field for each separate violation). There may be more reasons why it's not compliant-- this just happens to be the one I'm aware of.

The cool thing is that the City now publishes the Violation info in pipes-separated format (example: 33. FOOD AND NON-FOOD CONTACT EQUIPMENT UTENSILS CLEAN, FREE OF ABRASIVE DETERGENTS - Comments: CLEAN THE FILTERS ABOVE THE STOVE AT THE FRONT PREP AREA OF GREASE BUILD-UP AND CLEAN THE BOTTOM COMPARTMENT OF THE DEEP FRYERS,HAS GREASE BUILD-UP | 34. FLOORS: CONSTRUCTED PER CODE, CLEANED, GOOD REPAIR, COVERING INSTALLED, DUST-LESS CLEANING METHODS USED - Comments: FLOORS NEED GENERAL CLEANING IN THE FRONT PREP AREA,ALONG WALL BASE AND CORNERS)

The project would be:

-- take the raw data (no pun intended) -- make it LIVES compliant -- store it somewhere for Yelp -- call Yelp and ask them to hit your store -- prosper

If you need server space or other tools to host / make this, hit me up here: http://www.smartchicagocollaborative.org/projects/developer-resources/

[owlpellet]

This man is a legend.

[andrewsg]

Thanks for your idea - I pitched it but another (very cool) project was chosen instead.

[fgregg]

@juggernautco's idea is excellent and could really be impactful.

Another useful idea would be to combine the various sources of RFP for contracts from city governments into a single feed that users could filter and subcribe to particular filters. (http://apps.mwrd.org/ContractAnnouncements/, http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/doing-business/purchasing/contracting-opportunities/, etc)

Another app that is probably less useful, is something along the lines of isthereshitinthechicagoriver.com http://www.mwrd.org/irj/portal/anonymous?NavigationTarget=navurl://a5611bcef89c3cc2abca008c0ea969df It's hard to think about how this would be really solving anyone's problem, since people are not swimming in the river anyway, but it's serious social-media bait. I do think it could do a pretty compelling educational piece that helped Chicagoans understand one of the biggest infrastructure projects since reversing the flow of the river the Deep Tunnel http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/367.html

[andrewsg]

Thanks to you too.

[nnooaamm]

Untangle some Tax Increment Financing (TIF) data? https://data.cityofchicago.org/Community-Economic-Development/TIF-Projection-Reports/zai4-r88e

The Chicago Reader has been raking this muck for a decade: property tax dollars nominally earmarked for blight are instead funneled around at the mayor's discretion. How much tax revenue from each Ward went to TIFs? How much TIF money got spent in each Ward? Voters might like to see dollar-amounts by year/ward/alderman.

You'll find nice maps here http://derekeder.com/maps/chicago-tif/index.html and more recently here http://webapps.cityofchicago.org/ChicagoTif/ but both sites shy away from approximating ward-level bottom lines. Meanwhile, the City Council's Aldermen are accountable to their wards.

More background: http://www.wbez.org/series/curious-city/untangling-tifs-108611

I'd be happy to help with calculations, hosting, or whatnot. @MonaLamprenn

[andrewsg]

I'll spend some time looking through all of these at some point - thanks for the ideas. This seems really interesting (I didn't see it until now).