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In the software development world, practice makes perfect. Therefore, we should find as many ways to practice programming as possible.
With free public APIs, we can practice programming by creating apps that use those APIs.
In this article, we’ll look at some practice project ideas that can use some of those APIs.
Joke App
With the Chuck Norris Database API, we can make our own apps to display jokes about Chuck Norris.
We can display them however we like. We can display them randomly, get jokes by category, and whatever another way we can think of.
No authentication is required, so we can dig in without signing up.
Trivia Game
The Open Trivia API has a list of questions that are provided via their API. Each quest has both correct and incorrect answers.
Therefore, we can use it to make a trivia game app with ease. We can just display the questions and the choices and we can check against the answers that are listed.
No authentication is required, so we can dig in without signing up.
Donald Trump Quotes App
The Tronald Dump API provides us with what Donald Trump has said since he’s become a famous person.
There’re many ways to use them and display the quotes in entertaining ways.
No authentication is required, so we can dig in without signing up.
Comic App
With the xkcd API, we can get all the comics from xkcd without any effort.
We just have to make a request for each comic by ID and then we can display the comic provided as an image URL and the metadata in our own app.
No authentication is required, so we can dig in without signing up.
Bing Maps App
Bing Maps is a great resource for map data. We can use it to display maps, get geographies data, street view, routing information, location data, and much more.
It’s often overlooked since Google is the dominating maps provider, but Bing also provides tons of data for free or a low price.
To use the data, we have to sign up for an API key to gain access to it.
Google Maps App
Google Maps is the maps API that everyone thinks of when they look for a map API.
It also has free and paid tiers with much of the same information as provided by the Bing Maps API.
All we have to do is to sign up for an API key. However, do note that a credit card is required to sign up even for the free tier.
Coronavirus Tracker
The COVID-19 API has the latest data from John’s Hopkins University about the cases of the COVID-19 disease that’s been spreading for the last few months all over the world.
It has recorded data from the past and also the latest infection case data.
If we want to know when we can get out of the house again, then build an app with this and check the trends ourselves.
No authentication is required, so we can just start using it.
US Health Insurance App
The Healthcare.gov API has data about the American insurance marketplace that we can get in no time.
It’s all available as JSON so we can display them the way we like. It has education content like explaining what the insurance marketplace, so we can learn more from them.
Job Search App
Various job websites have provided their data via their API in addition to their regular website.
They include Github Jobs, GraphQL Jobs, Indeed, ZipRecruiter and more for jobs from any category, including the public and private sectors.
There’s plenty of data like description, name, location, and more. Also, we can search for them by keyword or location, which is very handy.
To gain access to them, we just have to sign up for an API key and then we can start playing with these APIs.
To make an app that lets us display and search for public sector jobs data, we can use the Search.gov Jobs API.
It has a full list of endpoints that we can call to gain access to federal jobs data, including searching by location, hiring paths, who qualify for which job, and more.
Conclusion
We can build lots of apps with free public APIs. They include job search apps, maps apps, and health info apps.
If we want some entertainment, we can also build apps that display and make a trivia game out of some trivial APIs.
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