Using Redis Queue to Schedule International Space Station Emails
22/10, 15:55–16:40 (America/Manaus), Aruanã - Vasco Vasquez

Have you looked up at the sky and wondered if the International Space Station was flying by? This live coded talk will cover using Redis Queue to schedule email notifications for tracking the ISS.


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 email 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 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 time.
- Integrate RQ and RQ Scheduler into a Flask web application.
- Respond to webhook requests with Flask.
- Access client-side geolocation data using JavaScript.
- Send email notifications using the SendGrid API.

In the Flask 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 an email notification using the Twilio API at a given datetime.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y97ByMg9tgA

Sam Agnew works in Developer Relations at Twilio and lives in New York City. He loves Python, JavaScript, fast guitar solos, and hacking old video games.