Turing Lovelace's submission for Coding for Community

1. We are Turing Lovelace
VacantLots
(Property Bidding App)
Co-leader Isaiah Little & Co-leader Alicina Memar
David Ruffner, Paul Turner, Benjamin BlueA
CREW

2. A Municipal Need for Newark
Vacant Properties First
● 23% homeownership
● 43% bank owned properties vacant*
● Our project addresses a Newark problem.
*www.safeguardproperties.com/News_and_Events/All_Client_Alerts/2013/04/Newark_NJ_Floats_Around_Idea_of_Using_Eminent_Domain.aspx

3. ● Vacant lots have an increase in exposure to risks like vandalism, fire,
theft and water damage
● Hazardous to pedestrians, cyclists, children at play
● And more...
Problem
...WE KNOW THIS!

4. But in case you didn’t know..
That hinders resale, hinders revitalization..
Leading to further setbacks
throughout our communities.

5. But how do we prepare for the extreme?
City government supporting public participation in figuring out what to do with these lots.

6. Impact: OPPORTUNITY FOR...

7. ..COMMUNITY INVESTMENT

8. An app allows the public to view
vacant properties and submit a
bid on a property.
For starters..
Our solution

9. Impact
● With this application, Newark can sell off its vacant and unused properties
● Vacant lots can be seen as investments to entrepreneurs
● This can mean more jobs, commerce and prosperity for the city
● In the short term, this means more business moving in
● In the long term, this can mean a raise in the standard of living

10. NOW WE CAN
ALL BE SHAQ!

11. How it all works: Overview
● VacantLots is a mobile first responsive web application which uses a MEAN
stack model
● It uses Angular 1 front end
● Sass preprocessor for styling
● Bootstrap for responsive design
● HTML5
● It uses NodeJS and MongoDb backend

12. ● The MongoDB is spun up with one database and two collections with one of
the collections having a one to many array to represent the number of bid and
favorites. The property table is provided through ETL. This whole thing is
hosted on a Linux VM node.
● The node server handles all of the routing for the various front end calls and
uses json web tokens to authenticate calls for logged in users. It is like a
middle man between the database and front end. It will make calls to the
mongo database for registration, login and also to retrieve the vacant lots data
(passwords are encrypted before being sent to the database). Other database
calls pertain to handling a user’s profile information and also to all bids made.
How it all works: Backend

13. How it all works: Front End
● Angular is a JavaScript framework. What this means is that it sets provides a
standard to set up the application. It uses a Model View Controller format to
separate logic, data and the visual aspects of the program.
● The Sass preprocessor is written like CSS but it is gives the programmer a
variety of different features. You can nest CSS, create variables and
functions. You can also have all your Sass code minified automatically; this
makes the code load into the page quicker.
● Bootstrap gives the user plenty of classes to write responsive websites,
provides a grid system and icons.
● HTML5 is the most modern iteration of HTML.
● Google’s open source material icons

14. How it all works: Map
The interactive map is created using Angular Google Maps which allows the
Google maps API to be directly called using AngularJS. Markers are added for
each property in the database. Clicking on a property calls a function which
redirects to a bid page and dynamically updates with the property’s information.

15. Originality
● Our content does not fork off of any existing web applications
● It does use the set of libraries and frameworks mentioned

16. Scalability
● The application is made for Newark but can be easily be modified to work with
cities with similar vacant lot bidding needs
● Very minor changes to the code would need to be done to adapt it for
elsewhere
○ Changing the source of information on vacant lots; basically a list of certain properties on
vacant lots that our backend uses as data
○ Some strings of text that indicate Newark being the focus of the app

17. Usability
● The app is not ready for immediate use, but is getting there
● We would need more input from the city in general and would need to have
the city decide how it wants to retrieve information on bids
● The app may need someone inside the development team maintaining it or
some kind of manual to help the city with maintaining it
● The city would need to follow certain standards for uploading its vacant lot
data to our application

18. Source code
Our code can be found at
https://github.com/chocolatechimpcookie/cfc_vacantlots_bid