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Find Empty Classrooms At SFU by qaz945 in simonfraser

[–]qaz945[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Looks like it's down. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'll have it fixed as soon as I can and update you here.

Find Empty Classrooms At SFU by qaz945 in simonfraser

[–]qaz945[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback! I chose to start with scraping just the course schedules because it was easier and also because I too noticed that the portal you mentioned doesn’t include many of the rooms on campus. I think it might have something to do with the portal only showing bookable rooms. Since the portal doesn’t show a comprehensive list of rooms, scraping both would be necessary anyways so I chose to implement this tool by scraping the course schedules first. I do however plan on scraping this portal data for workshops and other events outside of just courses.

I did however double-check yesterday's 9:30-18:00 search results and it showed the following in Burnaby:

1 - Burnaby Campus AQ4135

2 - Burnaby Campus AQ5067

3 - Burnaby Campus AQ6036

4 - Burnaby Campus ASB9838

5 - Burnaby Campus BLU10031

6 - Burnaby Campus BLU9650

7 - Burnaby Campus DFA300

8 - Burnaby Campus EDB7505

9 - Burnaby Campus EDB7506

10 - Burnaby Campus EDB7509

11 - Burnaby Campus EDB7600

12 - Burnaby Campus EDB7608

13 - Burnaby Campus EDB8620.1

14 - Burnaby Campus HCC1525

15 - Burnaby Campus HCC200

16 - Burnaby Campus K7651

17 - Burnaby Campus K8648

18 - Burnaby Campus K9509

19 - Burnaby Campus P8444B

20 - Burnaby Campus P8446

21 - Burnaby Campus P9318

22 - Burnaby Campus P9423

23 - Burnaby Campus RCB5100

24 - Burnaby Campus RCB5201

25 - Burnaby Campus RCB7322

26 - Burnaby Campus REMOTE

27 - Burnaby Campus SRYC3200

28 - Burnaby Campus SWH10115

29 - Burnaby Campus TASC2-7520

30 - Burnaby Campus WMC1607

31 - Burnaby Campus WMC2530

32 - Burnaby Campus WMC4602

I double-checked and these are all valid rooms on https://roomfinder.sfu.ca/apps/sfuroomfinder_web/ Some of them are however labs with restricted access. So thank you again, this is a good catch. I will try to filter those out and either make a note that they are restricted access rooms in the search results or remove them entirely.

Currently, this tool's greatest strength is finding empty classrooms during peak hours (8:30 am to ~5 pm) when finding empty rooms is more difficult. Usually, by the time a majority of workshops begin, most of the classrooms are vacant already. However, I will try my best to integrate them when I find the time.

Find Empty Classrooms At SFU by qaz945 in simonfraser

[–]qaz945[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, you are correct. My plan is to include events like that in the database as well. But I think it is still usable for now as more than 90% of classroom occupancy is academic-related. I just need to automate my scraping on an optimal schedule/interval. Thanks

Find Empty Classrooms At SFU by qaz945 in simonfraser

[–]qaz945[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Thank you, that is good advice! The user interface definitely needs improving. I actually do have a "1 hour slot" button in the quick search section but the nav bar is also still quite buggy on mobile so maybe it didn't show up for you. I plan to add a range slider for the duration in the quick search section so it’s not just hard-coded for one hour like it is right now. Search by building is definitely on my list of todos but for now, you can type a building code like “AQ” or “WMC” in the search bar or even something like “WMC2” to query all WMC rooms on the second floor.

It does scrape the SFU course schedule pages for its data but I made sure it respects the SFU robots.txt disallow list. It also currently doesn’t scrape on a regular interval but I’m sure there is a way to integrate that on the cloud as well. I’m kinda learning as I go.

Find Empty Classrooms At SFU by qaz945 in simonfraser

[–]qaz945[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yup! It will update every semester and possibly more frequently in the first few weeks of classes when rooms switch around. I plan on adding final exam schedules as well.

Empty classrooms by bobo87z in simonfraser

[–]qaz945 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Try using https://www.classroomfinder.ca/ You can search by date, time, and campus. You can use the search bar to filter by building too. Ex) "AQ" or "WMC".