City Counsel

City Counsel was the first of three group projects completed as part of the Coding Bootcamp at UNC Chapel Hill. As a group, we were asked to create something that uses APIs and AJAX to pull data from somewhere (the where was left up to us). Additionally, we were asked to use Bootstrap or another CSS framework, asked to have some sort of repeating element (table, columns, and so forth), to have user input validation, and asked to use Firebase for persistent data storage.

The Idea

City Counsel was conceived as a one-stop tool for city information. Whether you’re planning a night out in a city you’re familiar with, or a weekend away in a place you’ve never been to before, you generally want to know:

• What’s going on?
• Where should I eat?
• What should I wear?

Instead of checking multiple apps, or performing different searches to see the weather, discover restaurants, and so on, just head to City Counsel and get everything in one place.

Technology Stack

• APIs: Flickr, OpenWeatherMap, Zomato, Ticketmaster, Wikipedia.
• Firebase: store the recently searched cities.
• Bootstrap: the UI.
• Bootstrap Select: customize the location search dropdown
• MomentJS: determine what the date is now, so we can display upcoming events.
• AJAX
• Google Fonts

The Lessons

After an initial run-in with merge conflicts, we quickly learned how to avoid stepping on each other’s toes when working as a team.

Bootstrap is a wonderful framework for getting something standing in a short amount of time. Within a short time, I was able to create the basic page layout. I partnered with another group member on the theme and visual identity of the project, and drew the favicon to add a finishing touch.

While others worked with the various APIs to bring in all of the city data, I designed and implemented the “Recently Searched Cities” feature using Firebase for the back end.