Library Seat Reservation Bot

A bot to automate the daily booking and check-in process for library seats, ensuring a hassle-free experience.

Features

• Automated midnight seat booking when competition is highest
• Scheduled check-ins to maintain seat reservation
• Seat preference settings and location prioritization
• Notification system for successful bookings and check-ins

Technical Stack

• Chrome Extension
• Chromium
• Puppeteer
• JavaScript
• HTML/CSS
• Local storage for user preferences

Lessons Learned

Developing the Library Seat Reservation Bot was one of my more successful automation projects, delivering clear value to users in a competitive environment. The bot effectively solved a real problem: the difficulty of securing limited library seats during peak study periods.

The technical implementation proved highly reliable, handling the midnight booking rush when the reservation system opened and automating the check-in process that was required to maintain seat reservations. Using a combination of Chrome Extension, Puppeteer, and Chromium allowed for robust browser automation that worked consistently across the library's reservation platform.

An interesting aspect of this project was my attempt to commercialize it. Despite identifying a clear market need and developing a fully functional solution, my efforts to sell the bot on Carousell (an online marketplace) yielded interest but no actual payments. This highlighted the gap between solving a problem technically and successfully monetizing a solution.

This experience taught me valuable lessons about product validation and pricing strategy. In retrospect, a subscription model or a freemium approach might have been more effective than a one-time purchase offering. Additionally, demonstrating the bot's functionality through video tutorials could have built more trust with potential buyers.

The project ultimately reinforced that successful software products require both technical excellence and appropriate go-to-market strategies.