µFind

Font-end Repo Backend Repo in Golang Backend Repo in Node

µFind is a Google Maps like product that allows a user to find a location on a floor plan. For example, if you need to find the conference room “Thrive” somewhere on the 15th floor of the building and there isn’t number naming convention you would usually have to walk around the floor looking for the nameplate. With µFind simply search the name of the room. It’ll put a marker on the map and gently zoom in. You can pan and zoom in/out on the map as you like just like with Google Maps.

Why are there 2 APIs?

The Golang API was made first. Go was chosen because compilation to a single binary makes it really easy to deploy and it was officially supported by Google Cloud Platform. However, the biggest reason is that we all wanted to learn Go.

We ran into an issue where, at around midnight with sleep deprivation taking a toll, we realized we couldn’t connect to our hosted MongoDB. At the time, we didn’t realize that the MongoDB library we were using, mgo, wasn’t supported anymore and switching to the newer mongodb-driver looked hard to our tired minds.

At 2 AM we decided to rewrite the API in Node.JS which worked.

After the Hackathon was finished, the Go API was updated with the new driver and is properly working on it’s hosted App Engine instance.

Fast Facts
  • Made during the 2019 Humanathon (Humana intern hackathon) in 24 sleep deprived hours
  • Compiles to a web UI and native IOS and Android apps thanks to the Ionic Framework
  • Data is served from a simple Go api connecting to a MongoDB instance.