Inspiration
Coming into this, we knew we wanted to have fun, and we wanted to make something that could be used throughout the campuses. One of our teammates, Lena, had the great idea of tracking traffic at the dining halls throughout the 5cs. Every single 5C student has been through the struggle of waiting in massive lines for food, often times having to just grab a fruit and a slice of pizza if they have somewhere they need to be. Yet, on top of measuring how busy dining halls are, we wanted to create a page that would compact all data any student would need in making their decision on where and what to eat.
What it does
The site has four main features: a map, menus and hours for each of the dining halls, a check-in count, and an interactive comment box. The main focus of our app is to track traffic at the 5c dining halls, using "check-ins" as a way to measure congestion. Students can try to avoid dining halls with high check-in rates if they are trying to get a quick meal. While some students may be looking for the shortest lines, though, others might be looking for the best food or for the best environment. The menu allows students to easily compare what is being offered, while the comment box allows students to send extra, real-time information (ex. there's a flash mob in Frary right now!). For any first years who have yet to explore any dining hall but their own, we have provided a map in the hopes that they won't get lost!
How I built it
Using a mix of HTML, CSS, and Javascript, we somehow managed to develop a site that allows students to choose a dining hall in the most convenient way. Having only little experience in Python, our team turned to Google for help. Turns out if you ask Google just about any question, you'll get a VERY helpful answer. We found codes thats we could manipulate to do the things that we wanted it to do, and then the rest was playing around with the style to make our website pretty!
Challenges I ran into
Using AIPs is not easy. Centering a drop down menu is not easy. And most of all, having to send each other codes that didn't transfer over correctly was frustrating. Not to mention, the lack of sleep. I took a nap at 3 am, and woke up to the sweet smell of Krispy Kreme.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
EVERYTHING. On a scale from 1-5 on how much we knew about coding prior to this, i'd put our whole team at a 2. I think we performed the job of a level 4 coder.
What I learned
WOW SO MUCH. Coffee tastes like poo after too many cups of it. You can pretty much get any simple starter codes on the internet. Most importantly, if you are curious and poke around with different tools, you will amaze yourself with what you can do.
What's next for 5C Eats
Our team is excited to actually develop this app. In the future, we hope to use both check-ins and dining hall swipes to measure congestion. This is only just the first rough draft and outline of what we hope to take into the future.
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