spaceapps-bob

An attempt at the ["No Delays" Air Traffic Management challenge] 1 for NASA's Space Apps Challenge.

To do:

This was built in the course of about 18 hours of effort; it's a long way from complete!

• update visualisation to use real coordinates
  • it would be handy if we could store the actual coordinates of planes and aircraft, even if the model assumes a flat earth
  • translate_coords_for_canvas(aircraft_to_draw, all_aircraft, width, height) might be helpful...
• regular updates
  • the point of this is to build a simulation, so there has to be a way to update the state of the world on a regular basis
  • the Rails Way to do this seems to be a cronjob using curl, with a controller which does the work required
• aircraft in flight
  • just now, aircraft are pretty much stuck at an airport, either the one they're leaving or the one they've arrived at. They obviously don't do that in the Real World.
  • collision detection
• do something useful with aircraft on the ground
  • before worrying about snakes on planes in the air, it would be nice to do something useful with planes on the ground
  • this means adding new data on aircraft
    • fuel available
    • fuel burnt per unit time (enhancement: vary this with activity; more fuel will be burned in flight than on the ground)
      • this would be enhanced by regular updates
  • also adding new data on airports
    • how many aircraft can be sitting at an airport?
    • how many aircraft can take off at once?
• reporting (but not using Jasper…)
  • it would be handy if the simulation could show certain metrics
    • time waiting at airport / to land
    • cost incurred (time in flight * amount of fuel burned per unit time * cost of some quantity of fuel)
  • how long are planes on the ground, waiting to take off?
  • how long are planes waiting to land?
    • this is sort of a light version of aircraft in flight
• authentication
  • some features would be better if they required authentication (deleting airports, for instance)
  • we did start setting up Devise, but disabled it because ALL the tests failed