DormDash

Culture. Campus. Connection.

Inspiration

College campuses are incredibly diverse, yet many students, especially those far from home or from underrepresented backgrounds, often struggle to feel a sense of belonging on their campus. More so, many can't feel as though they're in a community that allows them to feel empowered or connected to their culture. When you’re juggling classes, work, and a new environment, something as simple as sharing a familiar dish with another student can make a world of difference in feeling seen and supported.

We started with one question: What if food could help students feel like they belong?

DormDash was inspired by the idea that something as simple as sharing a homemade meal can break barriers, spark connection, and make campus feel like home for everyone. For students who might feel as though they don't belong, disconnected, or even just homesick, a simple meal can bridge gaps and create a sense of community for voices that might go unheard.

DormDash also supports students with dietary needs that are often overlooked on campus. For many—whether managing allergies, religious food practices, chronic conditions, or cultural diets—finding safe, affordable meals can be especially challenging, particularly for underrepresented or first-generation students. By offering transparent ingredients, allergy-aware tags, and culturally meaningful labels, DormDash creates a space where students’ identities and needs are respected. This helps every student feel seen, supported, and included through something as simple as a meal.

DormDash reimagines food not just as nourishment, but for empowerment, connection, and uplifting voices.

User Research Insights

From interviewing 60+ students, we learned:

83% miss home-cooked meals
95% would buy meals made by other students
85% say authentic multicultural meals would improve their campus experience
Students are willing to spend $5–$9 per meal

These insights guided our feature decisions and validated the need for DormDash.

What it does

DormDash is a peer-to-peer homemade meal network where students can share home-cooked or culturally meaningful meals and make them accessible to anyone on campus.

Students who cook can:

Post homemade meals with ingredient transparency
Share the story behind their dish
Set low-cost or pay-what-you-can options
Offer meals that reflect their culture, traditions, or comfort foods

Students who want food can:

Discover meals by culture or dietary needs
Filter for allergens and comfort foods
Access budget-friendly portions
Connect directly with the cook

DormDash makes it easy to not only enjoy food that feels familiar (or to try something new), but to also connect with new students and foster a sense of community through a simple meal.

How we built it

We built DormDash as a full-stack web app focused on community, accessibility, and cultural connection.

Frontend:

Developed using React and Vite for a fast, responsive student-friendly interface
Designed custom UI components with CSS Modules and Lucide Icons
Integrated Three.js to visually represent meal information (like a floating globe representing international cuisine) that reinforces the idea of multicultural connection across campus
Added dynamic features like search, filtering, modal views, and live updating meal cards using React hooks

Backend:

Built a lightweight, scalable REST API using Node.js and Express
Structured routes for meals, tags, user profiles, reservations, and messaging
Used MongoDB (with Mongoose) and indexed queries to ensure fast data retrieval for smooth filtering and browsing

Database:

Used MongoDB to store user accounts, meal posts, tags, chats, and reservation data
Structured collections to support quick lookups and real-time UI updates
Designed flexible schemas so students can add custom tags, cultural notes, and allergens

Challenges we ran into

One challenge we faced was ensuring connection between the React frontend, Node.js backend, and MongoDB. We frequently had to change schemas, fix field names, and update API responses to sync the frontend and database.

Another big challenge we faced was iterating our codebase based on feedback from early users. Implementing features like allergy-aware tagging and the global visualization of dorm meals required rethinking parts of our frontend and backend architecture.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were proud of our visualization feature with the globe to display different dishes across campus as we loved how this showed multicultural connection across students. This was challenging to implement at first, as none of us were familiar with using Three.js to implement the graphic, but we were able to keep working on it and add the features other students provided as feedback.

What we learned

We learned a lot not only through experimenting with and exploring different technologies, but also with collaborating together as a team and trying to bring our shared experiences to life through our project. To ensure that our project was as effective as possible in meeting what other students needed in their own lives to feel empowered and connected with their campus, we learned how to gather feedback quickly, translate student ideas into concrete features, and design an experience that respects culture, accessibility, and belonging.

What's next for DormDash

We want to take DormDash from a prototype to a campus platform rooted in real student needs. Our goal is to continue customer discovery to validate the kinds of features students are most excited to see.

We plan to expand key features such as verified student accounts, community-driven cultural tags, and smarter recommendations that help students discover meals tied to their identity or interests. We also want to collaborate with cultural clubs and affinity groups to foster deeper community building and empower underrepresented students to share their heritage through food.

GitHub Repo: https://github.com/naavyaj-29/technica/