Hotspots Project
In collaboration with Lexington's Town Celebration Committee
Introduction
Lexington, MA is a town with many historic landmarks and enjoyable events such as the famous
Patriots' Day parade. Unfortunately, Patriots' Day had to be virtual in 2021 due to COVID-19.
The Lexington Town Government’s Celebration committee reached out to our coding team; they
wanted us to create a website with virtual events for people to have fun in despite the
pandemic. Our website allowed residents to participate in multiple activities including
taking photos in front of historical locations. These monuments were popular and visited
very frequently during the event. Please check the Patriots' Day project page for more
detail. Another major activity of the parade was that participants could mark their location
on a GPS based map system for each of the monuments they visited. This helped our team
collect data for future use, and inspired the Hotspots project.
What We Did
In this Hotspots project, we planned on developing a machine learning algorithm that could
successfully analyze data from the 2021 Patriots' Day parade. Our team learned the Weka API
and planned to code the final result in Java. The ultimate goal was to publish a research
paper of our findings and improve the virtual parade for the future. However, we disbanded
this project in March 2022 when the Lexington government announced their Patriots Day' parade
would return in person. Also, co-leader Gabriel Sui got accepted to the University of
Oxford, England and eventually graduated our team! Instead, our team joined other ongoing
projects to continue helping our town!
Impact On Community
In this project, our group analyzed data collected from the 2021 virtual Patriots' Day
parade to search for patterns that could improve the event in the future. Civic engagement
is promoted through this event by building a sense of community, giving citizens an
opportunity to go outside and visit town landmarks inspiring a sense of pride for the rich
heritage of the town. Since many Lexington citizens had minimized social contact and
isolated themselves during the pandemic, the Patriots' Day event also promoted taking a nice
walk, run or bike ride with friends and family. The Hotspots data planned to enhance the
event and encourage future engagement, further benefiting our community!
Members
Team Leads: Everest Yang, Gabriel Sui
Members: Yuanheng Mao, Joseph Jia, Eddie Zhu
