The US is in a food waste crisis. Currently, grocery stores discard over 40 billion pounds of edible food each year,
Meanwhile, 1 out of every 4 public schools is classified as high poverty, meaning 75% of the students qualify for lunch programs. School subsidized programs may provide the only food some students get. Our team is upset by this disconnect and wanted to create a solution.
We created FOOD BLOOM: a navigable software that connects schools and groceries, providing students and possibly their families with foods that would otherwise be discarded.
Through FOOD BLOOM schools can help these families i need by registering for donations from local companies. Food distributors, grocery stores, and bakeries can enter their excess food items into our website and be matched with local schools seeking donations. The schools can approve or deny this donation request and can set up a drop off or pick up plan.
Our website was designed and prototyped using adobeXD and adobe Illustrator.
On the backhand side sql, php and apache were used; however we did run into some problems. The main software component for FOOD BLOOM was the method of finding and matching schools and groceries. To do this, we decided to local host a MySQL server, and populate a database within MySQL with information on schools and groceries. We used MySQL to run queries sorting schools and groceries to match them based on their respective needs. While we were able to navigate MySQL, we realized that connecting the server on MySQL to an html address would be pretty rough. We had immense difficulty utilizing php for this purpose, realizing soon that we would need an Apache server configuration as well. This led to an insurmountable roadblock: the MySQL server and software was on my decade old mac desktop, which could not download Apache, because it required a more recent OS than my desktop to handle. At 2am, we attempted to have the other developer download and host a MySQL server and then download Apache, but at that point we had gotten pretty lost. We ended up unable to connect our completed design to the database, despite them functioning well separately.
As a group of first time hackers we are proud to be submitting a project even if its not fully functioning like we envisioned. We also managed to sustain a Mysql server, which was a big success. The design and software were both successful we were just unable to connect them.
When creating this project, on a social level, we learned more about the startling food waste issue within America. While researching, we foud many ways to solve this issue, which can be seen in our website. Food companies did not want to hassle with setting up arrangements to give excess food, so we created a system in where Food companies can directly contact educational institutions in an efficient way. Regarding working on this project, we learned many new softwares that we were unfamiliar with. For example, we realized how Figma functions later in the process with could have been more helpful to use than Adobe XD due to its interactive feature.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.