2NDs | Devpost

Inspiration

We noticed that many campus organizations end up having to dispose of perfectly good food after events, which contributes to both food waste and missed opportunities for students to enjoy free meals. This inspired us to create a solution that addresses both issues. By developing an app that connects students to leftover food from events, we aim to reduce food waste and ensure that students can benefit from these surplus resources.

What it does

Our app notifies students and campus members in real time when there is leftover food from events happening on campus. Users receive alerts about available food, the location, and a limited time window to grab the food before it's gone. The app helps reduce food waste and provides students with free meals, benefiting both the environment and the campus community.

How we built it

We used a web scraping API to extract event data from the campus website, which we integrated into the app's backend. The app scans event descriptions for keywords related to food and leftovers, then sends notifications to users when relevant events are found. The front-end was developed using React Native, allowing us to create a mobile application that works on both iOS and Android. We used Firebase for real-time notifications and database management, storing event data and user preferences.

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge was ensuring that our web scraping API consistently detected the right events with leftover food. Since event details are not always standardized on the campus website, we had to develop a flexible keyword filtering system. Another challenge was integrating real-time notifications efficiently, ensuring that users are alerted promptly without draining battery life or overwhelming them with alerts.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that our app is able to make a tangible impact by reducing food waste and helping students. Additionally, successfully integrating both web scraping and real-time notifications into a cross-platform mobile app was a big accomplishment for our team. We're especially excited that our app not only solves a problem but also strengthens the campus community by making resources like food more accessible.

What we learned

Throughout this project, we learned how to integrate web scraping technologies with mobile app development, which was new for most of our team. We also gained a deeper understanding of notification systems and how to optimize them for mobile users. Perhaps most importantly, we learned how tech can be leveraged to address sustainability challenges, like reducing food waste, in a simple yet effective way.