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Inspiration 🥐

With the ever-increasing cost of living, Baguette aims to be a revolutionary mobile web application designed to empower Australian consumers in making informed decisions about their every-day grocery shopping. Our mission is to make a strategic and cost-effective experience for every user.

What it does 🍞

Baguette is a user-friendly mobile app designed to empower consumers with real-time price comparisons for grocery items across different stores in their vicinity. The app's functionality revolves around a simple yet powerful concept. Users initiate the process by opening the Baguette app on their mobile browsers. Using the phone's camera, they can effortlessly scan the barcode of a grocery item. Instantaneously, Baguette fetches and displays comprehensive price information from various nearby grocery stores.The core features of Baguette include its barcode scanning capability, allowing users to quickly and easily scan the barcodes of grocery items. Once scanned, the app performs a real-time price comparison, presenting users with prices for the selected product from different grocery stores in their area. This empowers users to make informed decisions about where to purchase the item for the best savings. After selecting the products that they want to add to their bag, Baguette provides users with a comprehensive view of where to shop which products, and allows them to make well-informed and highly efficient choices regarding their grocery shopping. With its intuitive interface and data-driven approach, Baguette aims to simplify the shopping experience and help users optimise their spending.

How we built it 🥪

🧠1 Brainstorming As a team of first-time hackers, we wanted our application to be a product that we can use ourselves but also something that will make a positive impact on the community. We came up with a few problems that an everyday consumer may face and we decided to focus on developing an application that is suitable towards a diverse user base. Our ultimate goal was to create an application that has real-world impact.

⚙️2 Wireframing & Prototyping The front end was designed in Figma and the mobile web application is demonstrated as a prototype. We used Figma to effectively communicate what we visualise Baguette to look like and how it will work. The design of our application is simple and minimalistic yet memorable so users will continuously use them.

🛒 3 Development The backend system was created with Node.JS. We used Express framework and a SQlite database as it is the most friendly and beginner friendly database and this is our first time creating a database. SQLite may be changed out for a different database as our entries may grow in many sizes however for now it suits our needs. The frontend was attempted to be developed on Webflow and with HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Challenges we ran into 🥯

Our team successfully developed a backend component capable of scanning product barcodes and identifying the corresponding products. However, our confidence in HTML and CSS skills was lacking, causing a significant slowdown in our progress as team members attempted to relearn coding skills. Following a discussion with our mentor, we received advice to prioritise our pitch and design efforts. Consequently, we made the decision to divide our team into two groups: Team Figma and Team Video Editing. This strategic move led to a substantial acceleration in our overall progress.

Another challenge arose when a mentor informed us that another team had a similar idea. This revelation prompted us to consider additional features to implement, enhancing the uniqueness and competitiveness of our project.

Accomplishments that we’re proud of 🥨

We are proud of completing the hackathon. Going into the hackathon, as we are first time hackers, we were unsure about what we had to do. From the different meetings with mentors, we learnt how to ask direct questions and take on feedback. Although we couldn’t make a successful frontend, we are very proud of everything else we have completed within the short time frame.

Furthermore, Baguette hopefully promotes financial literacy and empower users to make informed choices. We hope that Baguette is not just a solution to a problem but a step towards a brighter, more sustainable future.

What we learned 🍞

As this is our first time participating, we all learnt how to navigate our way through a hackathon. In the initial stages of the hackathon, we learnt how to collaborate to brainstorm and plan ideas. During development, through the different experiences and abilities of each team member, we learnt about the different stages of creating a Mobile Web API. We learnt different skills such as using Figma, Webflow, Node.js, and more, and how to integrate the frontend and backend together. We also had mentoring sessions where we learnt more insight into the hackathon and how to work through the entire process.

What’s next for Baguette! 🥖

In addition to our current app, we have envisioned innovative features to address current issues, particularly in response to Australia’s problem with grocery price gouging. Recognising that a significant number of Australians shop at major retailers such as Coles and Woolworths, where prices can be inflated without considerable customer loss, we proposed a solution. Firstly, we aim to promote local businesses by allowing them to input their store information and prices into our app. This not only expands their reach but also enables customers to discover unique items not readily available elsewhere. Furthermore, we propose a dynamic pricing system wherein anyone can update prices, and if three users collectively modify a price, it will automatically change in the app. To encourage active user participation and ensure real-time data accuracy, we plan to implement an incentive. Users who update prices will accumulate points making them eligible to enter a monthly gift card raffle, thereby fostering engagement and assisting users in addressing their financial concerns. The initial database will be created through a webscape so we have every entry possible and updates will be minimal and have a high focus on new local stores prompting their prices, helping consumers and stores with the issue of price gouging. This is the direction once everything is set up. These ideas aim to enhance our app’s functionality and address challenges within the Australian grocery market. 🥖🥖🥖🥖🥖🥖🥖🥖🥖🥖