GDwags
best meme participation

Grocery.io

Inspiration

As students living off-campus, we often spend weekends manually checking grocery store websites to find the cheapest items. We thought, "Why not automate this process?" So, we decided to create our own platform, Grocery.io, to simplify our shopping experience.

What it does

Grocery.io aims to web scrape grocery store clearance items and display them on a simple, easy-to-use website. Instead of manually searching through multiple sites, users can enter their zip code and view nearby stores and deals on a single platform.

How we built it

We used React for the frontend to provide an intuitive user experience and Node.js with Express for the backend to handle web scraping and data processing. The combination of these technologies allowed us to develop a functional full-stack application.

Challenges we ran into

This was our first-ever full-stack project. None of us had prior experience with React, and our team composition—2 CS majors, 1 Computer Engineering major, and 1 Chemical Engineering major—meant we had a diverse range of knowledge but a steep learning curve for web development.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One of our biggest accomplishments was the loading screen. It was exciting to see how everything came together, and we’re particularly proud of how we were able to debug and identify issues in a completely new tech stack.

What we learned

We learned a lot about how JavaScript works and the integration between the frontend and backend. This project gave us valuable insights into what goes into building websites, something we often take for granted.

What's next for Grocery.io

Next, we plan to integrate Google Maps for displaying store locations, enhance the web scraping functionality, and use real-time data to offer a more robust shopping experience.