Once upon a time in 2021, after spending about a year learning and getting comfortable using Python, I was looking for a challenge that I could really sink my teeth into and that would stretch my abilities. I decided it would be a neat idea to create a program that would play the game Six Degrees of Separation based around Kevin Bacon. I set about on my quest and gathered as much data as the kind folks at TMDB would let. With a database filled with millions of people, movies, and cast lists I began sifting through the data. In brute force fashion I crafted some python to meticulously find every persons' smallest degree of separation. When complete, over one million people were linked to Kevin Bacon within six degrees. After a few refinements and database designs later and I had a working command line program.
GitHub link to Six Degrees of Bacon v1.0
But this was not enough and I felt the need to share what I had built (even though the people over at The Oracle of Bacon did it in 1999!). So I created this site, and the interactivity level of my creation grew far beyond the command line on my computer. This site has also grown in purpose. It now serves as an area to display the skills I have to develop functional, interactive, and available information systems in a scalable way.
I built this site, from scratch, using:
The awesome people at Python Anywhere are doing the hard work of hosting this site.
The source code for this site can be viewed HERE on GitHub
The site also contains many features other than just being able to search for celebrities and their degree of separation from Mr. Bacon. A fully featured accounts system is in place to allow for user interaction with the site.
User features include:
- Account creation can be handled through Google Single Sign on for user convenience
- Tracking of the largest degree of separation found by the user, and any “favorited” celebrities
- A profile to display this information about the user
- Access to a forum where all things Kevin Bacon can be discussed
- General account management features like password reset, email confirmation and account deletion
Game features (this will be updated as more features are added):
- A leaderboard of registered users that have found the largest degree of separation on the site
- (coming soon) tracking of user search count, and first finds
Users also can obtain an API key as all of the site's features are also available via a REST API built with Django Rest Framework. Documentation for the API is available HERE. If you would like to develop on top of the API please feel free.
If you are looking for some one with these kinds of skills or know someone that is, feel free to Contact Me.