Teens build Twitter bot to help COVID vaccine hopefuls snag appointments – CNET [CNET]

April 13, 2021 Thomas Giboney technology

samanddaniel — Sam Mendelson (left) and Daniel Stoiber, creators of CovaxSF.

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For plenty of people in the US, setting up a COVID-19 vaccine appointment has meant sitting in front of a computer, endlessly refreshing multiple browsers in hopes of snagging a rare open slot through their health provider or a nearby pharmacy. At times, getting a spot can seem like trying to win the lottery. (Actually, lottery odds might feel more favorable given limited vaccine supply and high demand.)

Sam Mendelson and Daniel Stoiber

Teenagers Sam Mendelson and Daniel Stoiber wanted to help their parents avoid the frustrating vaccine-chasing frenzy, so they got creative and ended up helping Mom and Dad, plus a lot more people. The friends built a Twitter bot, CovaxSF, that tracks vaccine availability by scanning California’s MyTurn vaccine database and alerts followers when (and where) appointments in the San Francisco Bay Area open up. As of this writing, it has more than 2,200 followers.

“The response has been unbelievable,” says Mendelson, 18. “We are getting so many comments and DMs saying that people got their appointments, or made appointments for their parents or grandparents.”

The pair, seniors at Design Tech High School in Redwood City, south of San Francisco, have spent about 25 hours on their free tool. They wrote it in the TypeScript programming language, and run it on a Raspberry Pi computer. The small, affordable machines are made to be tinkered with, and have virtually limitless applications.

Mendelson and Stoiber aren’t the only ones to think up enterprising solutions for vaccine seekers — there are apps for finding appointments in real time and sites that match Americans with leftover vaccines. They may, however, be the youngest.