Tracking the International Space Station in Django with Redis Queue and RQ Scheduler

Speaker: Sam Agnew

The international space station (ISS) is an orbital outpost circling high above our heads. Given a location on Earth (latitude, longitude) the ISS Open Notify API will compute the next `n` number of times that the ISS will be overhead. I will cover step by step how to build a web application that notifies users via text message when the ISS is passing over them.

In this session, attendees will learn how to:
– Access and interpret data from the ISS Open Notify API (http://open-notify.org/Open-Notify-API/ISS-Pass-Times/) on the exact timing on when the ISS will next pass a given geolocation.
– Use Redis Queue as a lightweight alternative to Celery for executing asynchronous tasks.
– Use RQ Scheduler to schedule tasks to be performed at a specific datetime.
– Integrate RQ and RQ Scheduler into a Django web application.
– Respond to webhook requests with Django.
– Access client-side geolocation data using JavaScript.
– Send text message notifications using the Twilio SMS API.

In the Django app built during this talk, Redis will be used to store subscriber information such as a user’s phone number and geolocation. RQ and RQ Scheduler will be used to execute a function that sends a text message notification using the Twilio API at a given datetime.

At the end of my talk, I will send a text message containing the code I wrote, and a walkthrough on how to get it running to all of the audience members who interacted with the live-coded web application from my session.