Spuddies

Inspiration

00:00 Up to 70% of college students experience food and housing insecurity, while US households waste an average of 30-40% of their food. Existing solutions fail to address this gap between food insecurity and food waste. That's where Spuddies comes in.

What it does

00:55 Spuddies is a website that connects students with excess food with those who need food. Students can make public posts to show when they have food to give away. They can also browse to find food other students are giving away, and with a single press of the button can claim food at no cost.

How we built it

2:09, 2:57 Spuddies was built using Node.js and Firebase as the backend. The frontend was built using HTML/CSS and Bootstrap.

Challenges we ran into

2:43, 3:35 One of the challenges we had was learning how to use Nodejs functions with Firebase and linking information from the database to the front end. We also ran into challenges when implementing Firebase authentication, for which we had to deploy the app in order to run. Finally, we had difficulties keeping track of signed-in users, but we overcame this by using HTML local storage.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re really proud that we have created a working web application with user authentication, a functional front-end and information linking from the database to the front end. We are especially thrilled of being able to come up with a project idea that can make a huge impact on students just like us.

What we learned

We learned a lot. Most of us had never used Firebase or Node.js before much less how to integrate them together. Through a lot of trial-and-error and research, we’ve learned how to create a functional UI, authenticate and create users, and link Node.js functions with Firebase.

What's next for Spuddies

3:50 There’s still a lot of work to be done on Spuddies. In terms of features, we would like to create a Search & Filtering system, where users could find specific food products, or filter by allergies and dietary restrictions. Additionally, implementing built-in messaging and a reporting system between users would give users the flexibility to ask about the food, negotiate pickup spots, and so on, as well as hold them accountable if any issues arise.