Allergen Detector

Inspiration

Two of our members are allergic to nuts and would have difficulty finding whether or not certain menu items were safe to eat at restaurants. Sometimes that was because the information wasn’t easily available, or they were in formats where it was hard to accurately determine if items were allergen-free. Considering that, we wanted to make something that could streamline that process.

What it does

Our project focuses on the Cheesecake Factory (however, we made it able to be scaled). Users pick allergens from a dropdown menu. After submitting that, they can either search for an item or request a list of every item that has the allergen. If they look for a specific item, our project returns the allergens in it. If they looked for the list, it should return the list as well as the allergens present throughout the list.

How we built it

We used Adobe, Python, Flask, React, Node.js, and Tailwind CSS.

We used Adobe acrobat and a converter to help convert our pdf files into JSON. We then cleaned up the data to match the format needed for our scripts.

We made a Python script to take in the user’s input. Depending on what was requested, it goes through a JSON file of every menu item at the Cheesecake Factory. If it matches the input criteria, the item is stored in an array. The function(s) then return that array to be displayed on our website/project.

We built our website using React and Node.js. In it, we created a main title/header for the website and three sections: 2 inputs and a list section. The inputs have a description and the dropdown/search filters to take in input. The list section displays the output derived from the Python scripts.

We used Tailwind CSS to make our website look more aesthetically pleasing, picking a blue theme and rounding our parts to change it from its previous presentation.

Challenges we ran into

We had issues syncing our local and remote repositories. Initially, we had issues with merging conflicts. Later, we had issues with the branches we made as there were times when we couldn’t see files in the terminal when we knew they existed in the file on our desktops. Fortunately, we got through most of the issues.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

For 3/4 of the team, this was our first hackathon as we are freshmen/sophomores. One of those teammates, learned python and wrote their first script. Another one of our more experiences teammates, taught the rest of us a lot and demonstrated leadership skills that helped bring everyone mostly up to speed with the different technologies we were using. Two of our teammates learned React and started implementing inline css before switching to Tailwind.

What we learned

We learned some of the basics of Python, React, Tailwind CSS, Adobe, and file types.

What's next for Allergen Detector

Our front end and back end need to still be synced in some spots, so we want to complete that to provide a smoother and fuller user experience. We will also try to include more restaurants and subsequently more allergens so there are more restaurant options besides the Cheesecake Factory.

Built With

• css
• flask
• javascript
• python
• react
• tailwind-css