Inspiration
Through Esca, we wanted to provide relief to students who were food insecure by connecting them with their schools and donors. We strive to reach every student at all corners of the world because no child should ever worry about their next meal.
What it does
Organizations such as restaurants can donate food to schools, which can then be distributed to students, in order to prevent a fast growing problem of food insecurity among them. This is both feasible and sustainable as our platform helps schools and colleges everywhere connect with local stores and businesses that are willing to help. With this platform, students can sign up to receive the food supplies they need.
How we built it
For the prototyping, we used Figma. For the API, we used multiple Node.js packages, including express, mongoose, and wolfram-alpha-api.
Challenges we ran into
Working on our Figma prototype was challenging as a couple members of the team were new to the platform, and we had trouble collaborating. When writing the API, we ran into challenges testing specific routes without a fully functional frontend. In addition, one of our team member’s (Nidhi Sakpal) devpost account got suspended, which caused problems as it was the planned form of submission.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Nidhi: I am proud of our team as we collaborated and were prompt about our work. I am also proud of how the prototype turned out! Charlie: I’m proud of how we persevered through this hackathon -despite any initial challenges we faced- to create an amazing prototype and API. Jonah: I am proud that we were able to come up with a way to bring restaurants together with schools in order to combat a worldwide issue. Anthony: I’m proud of how clean the Figma results are and “professional” it is.
What we learned
Nidhi: I learned a couple features in Figma. Additionally I attended a web development workshop that taught me how to use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create a website and design one, Charlie: Besides learning the basics of how hackathons run, I learned about convolutional networks and that there are some people that are extremely good at Tetris. Jonah: I learned how to use HTML, CSS as well as a little bit of Node.js and programs such as Figma. I also learned how to work better with a team to fix an urgent problem. Anthony: I learned how to use Figma well.
What's next for Esca
As we accumulate more resources, we will be able to complete the platform with a front end, and ultimately release it. This will enable schools and businesses to communicate and organize food donations for students with food insecurity.
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