Celebrate May the 4th with these Star Wars APIs

Today is May the Fourth, the day each year when we Star Wars nerds celebrate General Dodonna’s blessing to the troops about to attack the Death Star. “May the Force be with you,” he said. Suitably motivated, the rebel starfighter pilots then fought and destroyed the evil Death Star. The galaxy was saved. The good guys had triumphed.

There are a lot of ways to celebrate Star Wars Day. I always try to watch at least one movie from the series on May 4th – this year I’ll be re-watching A New Hope with my six year old, who shares my passion.  Alternatively, you can dress up, go to Star Wars events, have a marathon Star Wars watch sesh, and more.

Or you can honor the day with code – using these fun APIs. What better way to master the universe than to bend the droids to you will, after all?

6-ish Star Wars APIs to have fun with this Star Wars Day:

1. The Star Wars API, or “SWAPI” is an open source library that provides access to data about the Star Wars universe. The API allows developers to access information about planets, starships, vehicles, people, and more. The data is organized in a simple and easy-to-use format. It’s perfect for developing applications or games set in the Star Wars universe.

1.2 SWAPI Planets: You can use the SWAPI to get information about planets in the Star Wars universe.  The API returns data on each planet’s climate, terrain, diameter, gravity, population, orbital period, rotation period, and surface water percentage. You can also get information on a planet’s residents,and the films in which it appears.

1.3 SWAPI Starships: The SWAPI also provides data on various types of starships used throughout the Star Wars franchise. It’s a trove of ultranerdy data that’s fun to work with. Information returned by the API includes a starship’s name, model, manufacturer, length (in meters), crew capacity, passenger capacity, cargo capacity (in metric tons), consumables duration (measured in hours), hyperdrive rating (a measure of how fast a ship can travel through hyperspace), MGLT rating (megalights – a unit of speed), max atmospheric speed (in kilometers per hour), and hull class. You can also get information on what films a starship appears in as well as its pilots and passengers.

Sample output:

{
	"name": "Death Star",
	"model": "DS-1 Orbital Battle Station",
	"manufacturer": "Imperial Department of Military Research, Sienar Fleet Systems",
	"cost_in_credits": "1000000000000",
	"length": "120000",
	"max_atmosphering_speed": "n/a",
	"crew": "342,953",
	"passengers": "843,342",
	"cargo_capacity": "1000000000000",
	"consumables": "3 years",
	"hyperdrive_rating": "4.0",
	"MGLT": "10",
	"starship_class": "Deep Space Mobile Battlestation",
	"pilots": [],
	"films": [
		"https://swapi.dev/api/films/1/"
	],
	"created": "2014-12-10T16:36:50.509000Z",
	"edited": "2014-12-20T21:26:24.783000Z",
	"url": "https://swapi.dev/api/starships/9/"
}

4. The Yoda Speak Translator offers developers a way to translate any text into Yoda speech. Many ways this can be useful there are!

5. Sith Translator gives you API access to translate your text into Sith, the native language of the people of the pureblood (and evil) Sith. As I am sure you know, even after the extinction of the Sith species, the language was preserved in Sith holocrons, temples, and tomes from a variety of Sith Lords and historians. With this API you can integrate this crucial knowledge into websites or applications.

6. And last, the Jar Jar Binks Translator allows users to translate anything into the ear-piercing language of everyone’s least favorite Star Wars creator. Have fun with this one.

So whether you’re a diehard fan who can quote every line from every movie or someone who just enjoys a good sci-fi adventure, take some time today and cerebrate Star Wars Day in your own unique programmatic way. May the 4th be with you…

Get started with these and other APIs in our Coding & APIs-Fundamentals Learning Lab!

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