Less Typing, More Thinking!

Tagline
Towards a database of physics equations written in LaTeX that will allow students, teachers and researchers to focus on the important things.
Description

4muLaTex: A web application providing a database with hundreds of physics and maths equations written in LaTeX to enable the scientific community to spend less time typing and more time thinking. Extensive, easily searchable, and open to all, this bank of equations has everything you can think of at the click of a button! 

Technologies used

Python, Flask, SQLite, SQLAlchemy, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Elastic Search Engine.

Obstacles
  • Collaborating remotely in different timezones;
  • Sanitizing the data to create an extensive database;
  • Improving the time it takes to render the website.  
Accomplishments

We have a working website deployed on Heroku, which provides a database of hundreds of equations and search among them in milliseconds to provide the user with the latex code for the relevant equation on the click of a button. Also, shows the rendering of the equation, includes similar forms of it. Users can search not only by name nut also by tag and categories. We have many more ideas and plan on working on the project further. 

Learnings

To separate the tasks and work in smaller teams, to use Git, how elastic search work and how to deploy an app. Also, that extracting data from other websites and open access books is not that easy as it seemed. How to overcome challenges with software, connection, communication. To be realistic what we can implement in just a weekend. How to use graphical tools, to make a demo and to develop better coding practices in general.

Next steps

Extend the database with equations and separate them by categories and tags. Implement user features, login, favourite equations, opportunities to contribute. Advertise the website so that it reaches more people. Eventually, integrate with the Overleaf platform or something similar. 

One-minute video