Inspiration
Being active users of aggie reuse and the pantry on campus in the past, we really wanted to help them make full use of their service without having to worry about manual data entry, tracking real-time customer traffic while also providing them with several trends and models to analyze and enhance their already booming service to reach maximum efficiency.
What it does
Our Project tackles two key issues facing Aggie Reuse - 1) No viable way to manage and study customer traffic to the store. 2) No real automated inventory system that can be studied and analyzed from. We provide Aggie Reuse with solutions for both of these issues. We provide them with a very minimalistic tracking facility to monitor and study real-time customer traffic to the store. This is ably assisted by our data-driven models and trends that they can access and study, to choose hours of maximum customer interest and involvement. We tackle the second issue of a lack of automated inventory system, by providing them with two parallelly developed fully automated databases, that they can simply operate with a click. This database comes with several models and data trends already programmed that Aggie Reuse can simply access and make decisions such as finding out their in-demand categories, days and hours of the week that sell the most, and others. With this, we hope to solve both of the problem statements that Aggie Reuse required assistance with do so with a very smooth and attractive interface.
How we built it
We employed React.js and Node.js to successfully create a web app with multiple pages, connections to databases, etc. We used MySQL for our database while also displaying all our data on the actual website, making it easy for everyone to access and study.
We utilized CRUD functionality with React and Node. Aggie Reuse can simply select the category of the item they receive, and we handle the rest, updating it in the backend.
Challenges we ran into
Trying to find an optimal solution that is not easy to develop but makes it easier for every user on the other end to utilize and work with was our biggest hurdle to tackle. Multiple conversations with the representatives from the Aggie Reuse team helped us devise an idea and product that we believe accomplishes everything that they required. Coming up with the model of data that will be of most use to study for the user was particularly hard as we had to devise a strategy that compares multiple variables and provides the user with the option from choosing a table, bar graphs, etc to study from. The biggest challenge was to come up with a solution for the foot traffic as we struggled to come up with solutions that would not use a sensor or some kind of hardware. We finally landed on a simple clicker that automatically stores the number of people who walk into the facility and provides them with trends for hourly and weekly data, that can help Aggie Reuse decide what days to operate and what hours to open in for maximum customer participation.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
It was imperative for us to provide a smooth user interface that can be understood and utilized by any person. Our interface keeps it very simple, and we take responsibility for doing the complicated modeling and data analysis for you. Coming up with one solution for both the problem statements is also something we are extremely proud of as we knew from the get-go that we need one product that can smoothly deliver both solutions.
What we learned
Our biggest lesson was making a product that is very easy to navigate and grasp on first look. We used several react-components, web frameworks to do this and also made sure that none of this is hard coded for any study. We also learned a lot about how Aggie Reuse operates and how they keep track of inventory.
What's next for Aggie Reuse Version 2.0
Providing the user with more options to analyze and study the data is our utmost priority. Offering more data analysis options than what we already have is our number one goal. We would like to get approved by and work closely with Aggie Reuse to ensure we meet all of their requirements and goals. This is a complete product with several updates on the way.
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