CourierU

A tool for food banks and charities to efficiently deliver supplies to those in need while respecting social distancing.

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Inspiration

During this Covid-19 pandemic, our team saw a lot of need for many basic supplies. There were a lot of people hoarding more supplies than they needed, thus leaving those in need with less supplies. We wanted to create a platform that could help solve this issue and make supplies accessible for those that really need it.

What it does

The platform allows a virtual interaction between three users, the person requesting, the person donating, and the courier. For the person requesting, they are able to submit requests for supplies that they need. The person donating can view these request and choose which ones they want to donate to and drop the item off at the warehouse. The courier will then pick up items from the warehouse and deliver them to those who have requested it. Users are able to track their deliveries and couriers are able to view directions from the warehouse to the house of the requester.

How we built it

We use the Bootstrap library for the front-end development of the platform, MongoDB to handle the back-end, and Mapbox and Radar.io to handle the map integration.

Challenges we ran into

For past web-development projects, we mostly used the React framework. However, since Mapbox could not be natively used with React, we had to opt for Bootstrap, which was a more compatible library.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to successfully integrate a live map showing the requests and donations. In addition to that we were also able to generate the fastest route between the requesting point and donating point. We also added a login functionality so that users can login once and use the website until they are completely satisfied.

What we learned

How to integrate a live map into a website, how to add login functionality to a website, and how to use Bootstrap library.

What's next for CourierU

We plan on adding estimated time of delivery, so users know exactly when they will receive their supplies. An AI dispatcher, which can assign delivery jobs to the closest couriers. Adding a limit to how many items a user can request, to prevent hoarding. Pairing up with food banks to conduct mass deliveries.

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