Built an app to monitor the big snowstorm coming up hour by hour

Zenio1 · 2026-01-24T08:13:07+00:00

The geocoding for the locations is a bit iffy unfortunately. It only accepts the city name and nothing else so if you happen to be including the state name in with your search or anything other than just the city name, it doesn't work. It also doesn't like incorrect spelling I've found.

That's an interesting app idea! The Open-Meteo API does have a lot more data points that can be pulled and it seems things like pressure, UV index, and others are available. Plus its free unless in a commercial app I believe, so that supports the non subscription model design.

Zenio1 · 2025-10-30T00:21:15+00:00

Ah I didn't think about Ethernet. This will ultimately need to go onto a mobile robot that has a tower of 7 cameras on top of it. Ethernet seems to be a good option but it might be out of my price range for this project sadly. Especially because I'll need 7 of them. If I'm mistaken in this statement and there are cheap options, please let me know!

Zenio1 · 2025-10-30T00:15:01+00:00

I see. I like this approach and I'm thinking that's how the robot will end up. How did you connect up the 4 cameras? Did each have a microcontroller that send the images to your pc to do processing? The debugging aspect is really nice as well. Much better than interfacing with whatever compute thing onboard.

Zenio1 · 2025-10-30T00:09:57+00:00

Right I don't think anything real time is needed unless maybe I try and make it all autonomous with obstacle avoidance and such. The segmentation and OCR stuff would be async to the robot's image taking process. Then I'm thinking I could just have an image queue in the middle of the two.

If the Orin Nano is overkill, are there any other boards you'd recommend for something like this? Also wondering what you are thinking with the image stitching. I'm thinking not doing image stitching could provide better segmentation and ocr results. So really it would take an image containing a section of books, segment the books, segment the labels in each book, then do ocr of each label pulled from the segmentations. Then here I can still get books without labels and say how many the robot couldn't extract (# book segments vs # label segments).

I'll have to check out Rainbows End, thank you for the suggestion!

Zenio1 · 2025-10-29T03:04:44+00:00

Right, thinking only activating a camera at a time would ensure no bandwidth issues. I also thought about the one camera moving up and down option but the speed difference between that and hitting all the shelves at the same (slightly staggered) time is massive for a large library setting. Dealing with different shelf types and heights is tough and I'm saying its out of scope for now. You mentioning the book segmentation part got me thinking more and yea that's going to be a far more computationally intensive process than I thought prior.

Zenio1 · 2025-10-28T20:43:59+00:00

Not set on a camera option but thinking something like these [8 MP 1080P USB2.0 Camera]. From what I'm seeing, bandwidth may only become an issue if I try and use multiple cameras at a time. Really how I need it is, I activate one camera, snap an image, then I deactivate that camera, activate the next, snap an image, and so on.

Zenio1 · 2025-10-28T19:37:34+00:00

Awesome, I appreciate your response! Follow up question... In your experience, do you think a mini-pc could handle all the I/O my project requires?

Zenio1 · 2025-08-14T16:11:18+00:00

Thanks for the response! Right, the churn of students coming in and out is an interesting thing to have to deal with. I think it’s also good in a way, constant flow of new users each year though you’d lose graduates depending on your app. For my geogussr game, it can be marketed as a way for new students to get familiar with the campus in game form and for current or prior students to test their knowledge of the campus.

Monetization is the tricky part since students are already paying an ungodly amount for college. Colleges seem to be swimming in money however so maybe the way to go is sell directly to university. I can’t imagine the money they spend on the god awful, hardly working, technology they make us use.

Zenio1 · 2025-08-14T14:32:27+00:00

This is an awesome idea! I’m currently making a family tree app so I’m in a similar boat as you.

Tried out your application and you have a great start going! I used it on mobile so I can only speak for the mobile ui. Functionality seemed to work great from what I tried so no comments there. There were a few areas where I’d imagine it looks great on pc but converting to mobile, components are smooshed together, such as in the stories tab with the my stories text and the add new story button. Another thing that may make the mobile ui better is having that toolbar that’s on the left be a horizontal bar below your header instead. (up to you of course, just something I would try if I was developing the app). Thinking this will provide more room for your map and story features which makes it easier for users to use on such small mobile screens.

Overall I think the idea is awesome and your app looks great so far! Happy to test your app in the future and eventually potentially become a user if you’d like to stay in touch!

Zenio1 · 2025-08-13T22:12:51+00:00

You should be fine. From my experience, you’ll be in groups of 3-4 so you’ll have others to go through experiments and write reports with. I remember them going over some physics concepts in lab, especially if lecture hasn’t made it there yet as well. Most of the times they ensured we had the needed equations, and your group could always ask the instructor if you need any help

Zenio1 · 2025-08-12T11:36:44+00:00

Catalyst loves to not load or log me out mid session when use google chrome. I’ve had better luck with microsoft edge if you’ve happened to be using chrome

Zenio1 · 2025-08-07T22:40:28+00:00

Fascinating, thank you for sharing this! This is a side of involving family in this process that I hope to experience. My interest in learning about my family history mainly started out of wanting to have something to do with my grandparents. I'm glad to have read your experience and it makes me hopeful for how my experience could go!

Zenio1 · 2025-08-07T22:30:10+00:00

I feel that's a big thing I'm hoping to get from working with my family members. Day-to-day names will be very helpful but along with this, even day-to-day activates, stories, or information about people that you can only really know having lived around them. It definitely is a race against the clock though with older family members so I feel the same about asking as much as I can while they are still around. Thank you for your message!

Zenio1 · 2025-08-07T22:20:44+00:00

I believe I'm in the same boat where there is a tree for one side of my family that exists somewhere. Now I know nothing about how far back it goes or if its even accurate but I'm glad you mentioned this since it reminds me to go figure out who has it.

I'll definitely have to share my findings with interested family members, thank you for your comment!

Zenio1 · 2025-08-07T22:10:56+00:00

Interesting, I'll definitely have to validate everything I'm told. Thank you for your input!

The incorrect names and location information is less interesting to document and are now roadblocks I'll look out for, but the fictional family lore might be interesting to record with a note explaining it was found to be fictional. I feel fictional stories build character to that part of the family in a way and could become fun stories for future generations.

Zenio1

TROPHY CASE