Flex Dollars Progress
Sample from Schedule Planner

Inspiration

Helps people ensure they are on track to use up all their flex dollars and meal blocks. CMU requires freshman to purchase a meal plan, and if the flex dollars and meal blocks are not used up at the end of the semester, they are gone. This app gives students confidence they can use up all their flex dollars and meal blocks in time. We noticed that planning course schedules, which involve many trial-and-error rounds, is a headache for many, so we thought to develop a program to automate the process.

What it does

This app tracks the progress of each students' dining progress by having them input the amount of flex dollars and meal blocks they have remaining. For instance, in the example image, if a student continued to spend $2/day for the rest of the semester, they'd have about 400 flex dollars left when the semester ends. It also automates the schedule planning process, generating possible plans for registration.

How we built it

This app was built in R, specifically in the Shiny Apps framework. The schedule planner was written in python, with recursive backtracking as backend and tkinter for UI.

Challenges we ran into

One particular challenge was trying to integrate R and Python code together. Also recursive backtracking was HELLA HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Having a workable app that can minimize the number of students that will buy all of Entropy on the last day of the semester. Also wrote a shit ton of recursive backtracking.

What we learned

Just the right amount of coffee to last a whole night. Also, how to approach socially meaningful projects. The technical experience was meaningful too.