Food Share

We help you feed those in need.

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Inspiration

Every year, a massive amount of food goes uneaten and often gets thrown out or expires. This is often due to overbuying and people not knowing what to do with their extra food. This food, we realized, could instead be used to feed those in need around our community rather than being thrown out. From these ideas, our project is based on the concept of feeding those in need with your extras.

What it does

Our project consists of three different web pages: a search tab, a wanted food tab, and a game tab.

The search tab contains a user input, an enter button, a map, and a list. The user types in a location into the input, and presses the enter button. This will show a map of that location with pinpoints on nearby food drives/banks. On the left, a list with every place's name, rating, and address will appear.

In the wanted food tab, the most needed food items in Loudoun County will appear. So far, we have only implemented the code for this page for Loudoun County. In the future, we plan on extending the page to numerous locations around the globe and making it real-time.

The game tab initially requests users to spend their $100 on bread, apples, and pasta. Then, at 10 seconds, a customer will appear and ask to buy certain amounts of each food. At 20 seconds, the day is over and the game will request you to donate your extra food. Not paying the customer and running out of money are ways to lose the game. This game shows how you need to be careful with money and how you should always donate extra food instead of throwing it away.

How we built it

First, we brainstormed ideas related to the theme of the hackathon (food). We wrote these ideas on an online document and discussed the pros and cons of each choice. Eventually, we decided on the idea of showing users food pantries/banks near them. One of us set up and located the API and research needed, while the other started working on the project. After finishing our designated work, we moved on to the other web pages, the slideshow shown in the video, and the questions on this DevPost.

Challenges we ran into

Throughout our working process, we ran into numerous challenges, such as embedding the Google Maps section into the search tab, locating the nearest pantries/drives, acquiring information like addresses and names from them, and developing the game on the game page. When dealing with these challenges, we worked together to debug the problem, searched online for solutions, and asked volunteers for assistance.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to present our search tab, as it took by far the most work and effort. Displaying the information for every place was quite difficult as well, so we're proud that it eventually worked in the end. Converting the address into latitude and longitude also took a surprising amount of time, so we're proud that we were able to achieve this.

What we learned

From this experience, we both learned new aspects of each coding language (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), such as hover selectors (CSS) and event listeners (JavaScript). Another part of the project we learned about was APIs. Both of us had rarely used them in our projects, so implementing one in our project helped us learn the topic of API.

What's next for Food Share

In the future, we plan on implementing new features in each of the three tabs, such as more detailed information for each location (search tab), making the wanted foods in real-time (wanted food tab), and making the entire experience more interactive and enjoyable. We anticipate that these changes will be made possible through the use of AI or Machine Learning.

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