Hydraulics Lookup Tool
Level of Education of Students Involved
Undergraduate
Faculty Sponsor
Nick Rosasco
College
College of Arts & Sciences (CAS)
Discipline(s)
Computer Science
ORCID Identifier(s)
Kurt Brown 0009-0009-6161-0594, Michael Albers 0009-0005-1903-8476
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Symposium Date
Spring 4-24-2025
Abstract
The aim of this project is to build a website for finding interchangeable hydraulics parts and providing links to verified suppliers at the request of an expert in the hydraulics industry, as there are many hydraulics parts that can be substituted for each other, but no way of easily identifying them. This application will support customers' ability to acquire parts from various suppliers via entering the name of a part into a public-facing website. The software shall search through its database and return a list of compatible parts with links to where they can be obtained. This project was created using the Agile Development Model, and authored using HTML, CSS, and PHP, with a SQL database. The database backend was populated using Python to scrape information from hydraulics catalogs and upload relevant technical data. Challenges included parsing and scraping data from PDF files with varying formats which raised the complexity of identifying and collecting key information. Considerations also included the ability to support regular updates to these information sources as manufacturers adjust and expand their product line. This project was built to be extended with a larger database and more options for users to search and filter parts.
Recommended Citation
Brown, Kurt and Albers, Michael, "Hydraulics Lookup Tool" (2025). Symposium on Undergraduate Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE). 1482.
https://scholar.valpo.edu/cus/1482
Biographical Information about Author(s)
Kurt Brown is a senior at Valparaiso University, majoring in Data Science and Computer Science
Michael Albers is a junior at Valparaiso University, majoring in Computer Science