Tick Risk Visualization
Second place project from Hello Social World hackathon at Tec de Monterrey Guadalajara to visualize high risk zones for tick infestations in Mexico using the Google Maps API.
Won $250 and office space/mentorship in Changemaker Hub.
Seesite
Modeling Tick Infestation
The problem
The mayor of the agricultural community we partnered with said a huge issue they face is a tick infection destroying their livestock.
In particular, they don't know where to focus their very limited resources to fight back.
Biological model
Our project was to predict and visualize these high risk zones.
The biologist in our group used an Ecological Niche model, fed with data about Mexican environmental variables and historical tick reports, to develop a rudimentary model that predicts risk for tick infections in Mexico.
I then layered this biological model onto Google Maps.
Technology
Google Maps API
The main site's feature is an embedded Google Maps API that visualizes the KML geographic data layer created through GIS software from my biologist team member. Also added auto-fill search box to map.
Responsive web site
This Google Maps app is embedded into a responsive website I made with HTML5 and CSS3. Also includes page on suggestions to fight ticks.
Comments
What I learned
- Google Maps API
- Geographic data and KML
- Building site under time pressure
- Leveraging an interdisciplinary team (one biologist, one finance student, and me with computer science)
- Understanding end user - for example, was key to make site responsive because most users would access site with Android
Problems
- Built quickly to prove MVP for hackathon
- Potentially boring design - just went for clean, simple, and responsive
Improvements
- Visualize different types of risk zones. Currently only showing high risk, but can add toggle to switch between low, medium, high; or show all concurrently.
- Allow users to submit reports of tick infections. We could then feed this data to update our model.
- Automatically locate the user