Beds 'N Bread

Real-time map for Ottawa's homeless, showing shelter/food bank availability. QR check-ins update bed counts instantly. Helping those in need find help faster.

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Inspiration

As students in Ottawa we decided to create something that can give back to our community. We were inspired by Ottawa's homelessness crisis, which has only worsened by rising food insecurity and harsher winter conditions. This growing problem is what sparked our mission to connect those in need with immediate, accessible resources through our web app, Beds 'N Bread.

What it does

Beds 'N Bread is a web app that provides an interactive map of Ottawa's shelters and food banks, through crowd funded data. We collect a range of data from the number of people at each shelter (tracked via QR code scanning) to the amenities at each location. This data is then used to better assist other users to determine the best place to go that meets their needs.

How we built it

To bring Beds 'N Bread to life, we combined a variety of different tools to create a helpful platform.

  • Supabase to host our PostgreSQL database which stores the data provided by people and ensures scalability in the future.
  • Node.js to handle backend functionality and connect the AI chat bot
  • Gemini API to enable the AI chatbot that helps you navigate the web app
  • Mapbox API to integrate an interactive 3D map, allowing users to better visualize nearby shelters and food banks
  • CanadaPost AddressCompleter API and parse it into GeoLocation to translate address to longitude/latitude for marker placement in mapbox
  • Auth0 for authentication and the signup/login system
  • Cloudflare for captcha and dns management
  • Bootstrap to elevate the design of our frontend and ensuring a user-friendly interface
  • Copilot to refine our code

Challenges we ran into

With such a huge project came multiple challenges, especially because this was our first time using many of these development tools. One of our biggest obstacles was figuring out how to auto-populate the markers on the map using the information from the database. Another major challenge we ran into is getting Auth0 to authenticate and track the signup/login information.

What we learned

This project was a huge learning opportunity for all of us, as it was our first time coding something on such a large scale. As a team we became more effective at collaborating and asking each other for help. Additionally, we learned the importance of defining roles and communicating regularly to avoid confusion. Furthermore, we were introduced to and became more familiar with a variety of development tools such as Supabase, Auth0, Bootstrap, and APIs.

What's next for Beds 'N Bread

For such a big project there are so many things that we can do to improve it and make it more easily accessible for those in need. One thing that we would like to do is add more map features so that it displays more information and is more interactive. This would allow people to make more informed decisions on where to go. Another thing we would like to improve is our implementation of Auth0 to properly authenticate and store login/signup info. Furthermore, we would continue to maintain our website and regularly update our website to provide continuous support.

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