Liam Tomlinson

What & Why

Introduction

I built this software for a company called Ocean Genesis, which manages marine tank parameters. This essentially means getting the water chemistry in fish tanks perfect (with the correct water hardness, calcium, and magnesium levels). Ocean Genesis manufactures solutions to adjust these levels. This is where my software comes in—it allows users to perform water quality tests and input their results. The software then tracks these results and calculates the amount of chemicals needed to maintain optimal water conditions, ensuring the best life support for coral reefs. This software is mainly used in home marine aquariums but has also attracted interest from public aquariums and research facilities.

The Stack

Technologies

Ocean Genesis is primarily split into two repositories. On the front end, we have a React web app, and on the backend, we have a RESTful API built using Node.js and Express. For styling, we mostly use Tailwind. The web app uses Axios to communicate with the backend and Firebase Authentication to authenticate users. For payments, we call the Stripe API, and for sending emails, we call the Brevo API. We also use Supabase for storage. This project was entirely built by me, from the initial design and architecture to development.

One big learning opportunity

retrospective

Overall, I have really enjoyed working on Ocean Genesis, and apart from my time at NorthCoders, it has been the biggest learning curve yet. In particular, I learned a lot about calling third-party APIs, especially Stripe. I also learned how complex a full product like Ocean Genesis can be. I initially underestimated the size of the project and had to go back and add several more endpoints to the Express server as the project progressed. I feel like I have also improved my skills in React, successfully using features like state management. In the future I am now working with Ocean Genesis to launch IOT hardware.