"It kicked off around four weeks ago when we were actually told we wouldn't have school anymore for some time," Bolano said. "We had that extra time and it woke a lot of us up to say, 'Hey, this is getting really serious, let's do something.'"

All six boys, who know each other from taking their school's engineering and computer science classes, saw the need to come together and make something helpful for their community when their school was closed last month.

"We made BACT because, as students, we’re taught to give back to society, and we wanted to do that by creating a site that anyone could use," Harihanan told the Weekly.

Foothill juniors and seniors Kishore Harihanan, Logan Dickey, Tarun Prakash, Vishal Muthuraja, Prem Giridhar and Jacob Bolano have spent the last several weeks pouring themselves into building a website -- Bay Area COVID-19 Tracker (BACT) -- that focuses on tracking local cases related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and providing other useful resources and information.

A group of Foothill High School students have been determined to continue learning while making a difference for their community during the pandemic, following the announcement of the regional shelter-in-place order in effect through at least May 3.

Users can click on their county and find specific information about COVID-19 in their area. The top four articles from local media outlets are also provided to give users new updates, while the health page gives an overview of COVID-19 and information about staying safe.

BACT has six main features at the moment: a case map, statistical chart, curated news articles, a resource list, and health and FAQ pages. The map has COVID-19 case data from each Bay Area county and is updated every half-hour.

"What we're working on is making it more local and specific to people in our area," Dickey said. "We're gathering news information and making it very specific on where we are. It's more of a centralized area in the Bay Area for people to get information from instead of statistics about globalized trends."

Though inspired by already existing websites dedicated to COVID-19 tracking, like the one by Johns Hopkins University, which covers cases globally, the boys wanted something dedicated to what's happening in their backyard. Instead, BACT cuts through loads of generalized information and instead focuses on the San Francisco Bay Area to make it more applicable for regional users.

Though they received feedback along the way from their instructors, the website is entirely the boys' own idea and making -- which has also involved quite a few hours of labor.

"Basically we called every day and it was a lot of work over the internet, chatting with each other, fixing issues," Muthuraja said.

The boys couldn't work together in person due to the recent shift to increased social distancing and remote learning for Pleasanton students, so instead they used a variety of online tools and resources like GitHub and Google Drive to remotely build the website.

BACT fetches data from multiple sources every 30 minutes that is cross-checked to ensure the reliability of numbers. Users can see which sources are used under each section of the website as well as on the Resources page. An FAQ page also answers commonly asked questions about the website and its team.

Because "community feedback and support are integral, as BACT can’t run without servers that host the website along with other services," Harihanan said users can donate on BACT to support the site's maintenance and development, as everything is currently funded out of pocket.

The group said they are always open to suggestions and feature requests, so a feature request button will be integrated on the website, allowing users to submit a request or suggestion for a feature they want to see.

One pending feature that users should find helpful is a tracker that will monitor hundreds of products in stores around the Bay Area, including food, hand sanitizer and toilet paper, to inform shoppers about what's in stock. Additionally, the group is also "looking into working closely with local health officials and organizations directly so our information continues to be accurate and up-to-date," Harihanan said. "Our goal is to make this tool as useful to our community as possible."

And there's still plenty more work to complete; in the coming weeks, "We will be working towards integrating a notification system for our users that alerts them through Twitter, email, and text," Harihanan said. "We will also emphasize open-sourcing our website using an API for people around the world to adapt and use for their region."

Foothill students unveil coronavirus tracker website

Bay Area COVID-19 Tracker specializes in localized news & other info about pandemic

Uploaded: Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 1:27 pm

A group of Foothill High School students have been determined to continue learning while making a difference for their community during the pandemic, following the announcement of the regional shelter-in-place order in effect through at least May 3. Foothill juniors and seniors Kishore Harihanan, Logan Dickey, Tarun Prakash, Vishal Muthuraja, Prem Giridhar and Jacob Bolano have spent the last several weeks pouring themselves into building a website -- Bay Area COVID-19 Tracker (BACT) -- that focuses on tracking local cases related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and providing other useful resources and information. "We made BACT because, as students, we’re taught to give back to society, and we wanted to do that by creating a site that anyone could use," Harihanan told the Weekly. All six boys, who know each other from taking their school's engineering and computer science classes, saw the need to come together and make something helpful for their community when their school was closed last month. "It kicked off around four weeks ago when we were actually told we wouldn't have school anymore for some time," Bolano said. "We had that extra time and it woke a lot of us up to say, 'Hey, this is getting really serious, let's do something.'" For the tech-minded group, that "something" ended up being their recently launched website. Though inspired by already existing websites dedicated to COVID-19 tracking, like the one by Johns Hopkins University, which covers cases globally, the boys wanted something dedicated to what's happening in their backyard. Instead, BACT cuts through loads of generalized information and instead focuses on the San Francisco Bay Area to make it more applicable for regional users. "What we're working on is making it more local and specific to people in our area," Dickey said. "We're gathering news information and making it very specific on where we are. It's more of a centralized area in the Bay Area for people to get information from instead of statistics about globalized trends." BACT has six main features at the moment: a case map, statistical chart, curated news articles, a resource list, and health and FAQ pages. The map has COVID-19 case data from each Bay Area county and is updated every half-hour. Users can click on their county and find specific information about COVID-19 in their area. The top four articles from local media outlets are also provided to give users new updates, while the health page gives an overview of COVID-19 and information about staying safe. BACT fetches data from multiple sources every 30 minutes that is cross-checked to ensure the reliability of numbers. Users can see which sources are used under each section of the website as well as on the Resources page. An FAQ page also answers commonly asked questions about the website and its team. The boys couldn't work together in person due to the recent shift to increased social distancing and remote learning for Pleasanton students, so instead they used a variety of online tools and resources like GitHub and Google Drive to remotely build the website. "Basically we called every day and it was a lot of work over the internet, chatting with each other, fixing issues," Muthuraja said. Though they received feedback along the way from their instructors, the website is entirely the boys' own idea and making -- which has also involved quite a few hours of labor. "I think on average we've all worked around 10 hours a day --design, coding -- there's a lot of work to do," Prakash said. And there's still plenty more work to complete; in the coming weeks, "We will be working towards integrating a notification system for our users that alerts them through Twitter, email, and text," Harihanan said. "We will also emphasize open-sourcing our website using an API for people around the world to adapt and use for their region." One pending feature that users should find helpful is a tracker that will monitor hundreds of products in stores around the Bay Area, including food, hand sanitizer and toilet paper, to inform shoppers about what's in stock. Additionally, the group is also "looking into working closely with local health officials and organizations directly so our information continues to be accurate and up-to-date," Harihanan said. "Our goal is to make this tool as useful to our community as possible." The group said they are always open to suggestions and feature requests, so a feature request button will be integrated on the website, allowing users to submit a request or suggestion for a feature they want to see. Because "community feedback and support are integral, as BACT can’t run without servers that host the website along with other services," Harihanan said users can donate on BACT to support the site's maintenance and development, as everything is currently funded out of pocket. Inquiries about BACT can be sent to [email protected] Check out BACT at https://bact.nizesystems.com.

Julia Baum is a staff writer for the Pleasanton Weekly. Reach her at [email protected] or 925-600-0840, ext. 111.