Daryl Albano was born and raised on the Big Island. After graduating from Keaau High School, he began attending the University of Hawaii at Hilo, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Outside of his coursework, Daryl mentors high school students in STEM projects, as well as manages UH Hilo’s robotics team. After completing his Bachelor’s degree, Daryl plans to work on various engineering projects requiring critical-thinking and collaborative skills. During his free time, Daryl enjoys running, working on computers, and film/digital photography.
Home Island:Â Big Island
High School:Â Keeau High School
Institution when accepted: University of Hawaii at Hilo
Akamai Project:Â Integrating a Web-Based Interactive Timeline to Inform the Community about the Thirty Meter Telescope Development Process
Project Site: Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory
Mentor:Â Tony Travouillon
The current website for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) provides the latest news and progress updates on TMT’s development. With the transition to a new website, now recognized as the Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory (TIO), TIO is interested to add interactive web applications in order to inform the community about TMT with modern tools. With a given topic, the timeline must be able to centralize the content in a graphical interface to engage the audience’s attention. To show the history and milestones of TMT on a visual timeline, TimelineJS from Knight Lab was selected because of its clean user interface and framework compatibility. Since the new website is built on the Ruby on Rails framework, web application integration is a crucial step. Thus, we decided to have the timeline written in JavaScript because of its compatibility with various web frameworks. Additionally, we built a content management system in Ruby, allowing the site administrator to effortlessly add, delete, and edit web application content, rather than have them edit the source code directly. Before integrating the timeline to the website, standalone prototypes were developed to demonstrate conceptual designs. Once a suitable prototype is deemed worthy, development and testing of the full version begins. This includes unit and integration testing, and software modifications to confirm that the web applications work well with TIO website standards. Alongside the timeline, we are currently developing other interactive web applications, such as an interactive map and an exposure time calculator. Having these tools available yields further benefits of providing engaging user content and to inform the community about TMT overall.