FridgePal

Main Page
Recipes with ingredients in "fridge"
Adding picture of fridge

Inspiration

Our inspiration for FridgePal was our own experiences with food waste. We all had many instances where the food in our fridge would go to waste. Sometimes we forgot what we had, sometimes we didn't know the ingredients, and sometimes we didn't know what to make. As a result, we quickly realized the amount of money wasted, as well as the significant amount of food waste that had accumulated over time. This led us to create FridgePal, a solution that helps people make the most of what they have, turning overlooked ingredients into hearty meals.

What it does

FridgePal analyzes a picture of a user's fridge and suggests recipes out of those ingredients, preventing food wastage.

How we built it

Our team first began brainstorming ideas and creating a Google Doc with all the information about our app. Afterwards, we found the most useful tech stack to make our project with. After downloading the correct languages, frameworks, and tools, we began FridgePal. We started with the backend with Python on VSCode through Flask, where we created the content. Afterwards, we integrated a source link for an open-source database, Roboflow, for an object-recognition program for pictures of food. Then, we created a template for creating a camera, index, label, and results.html with Jinja. Finally, we created the front-end UI through Bootstrap 5.

Challenges we ran into

Some of the challenges we ran into included learning how to combine multiple languages to create a project. In the past, we would only work with one language at a time, so we had to learn how to create language files. Additionally, we had to learn how to do the front-end coding for our web-based app, and we had to learn more HTML to code the front-end part of our web. Training the model was difficult because it took a long time; for example, we had to set lots of time aside so we could make adjustments to the model due to errors. As a result, we needed to train the model more for our app to recognize more food in the fridge, which also allows for more recipes.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of how we were able to quickly adapt to new tools and technologies, especially since this is our first time with full-stack development. We successfully connected the backend, learning model, and a working front-end prototype. This was something we weren't able to do at the start.

What we learned

Through this experience, the team learned both essential technical and soft skills. This experience was our team's first time creating a program through multiple tools, giving us experience with Full-Stack development. Additionally, we learned core communication and organizational skills by designating tasks, blocking time to work together, etc.

What's next for FridgePal

FridgePal has room for improvement with UI and the ability to expand the features. Wth a cleaner, more readable UI and features such as a calorie counter and a "nutrient value" section. Through Figma and app development tools, we could expand to multiple platforms, such as mobile and desktop.