HalalEats

Inspiration

Campus food trucks are everywhere, but finding one that’s nearby, affordable, and halal-certified can be a challenge. We wanted to solve two problems at once: make eating more convenient for students, and give under-resourced vendors the visibility and tools they deserve.

What it does

HalalEats is a mobile app that helps students:

Discover food trucks on a live campus map (Temple and Drexel).

Filter by cuisine, price, spice level, or halal certification.

Read and post reviews with photos and ratings.

Earn points, badges, and streaks for visits, reviews, and orders.

See leaderboards and top menu items based on student activity.

Vendors get a dashboard with insights like sales summaries and most popular items.

How we built it

Frontend: React Native with Expo for cross-platform deployment.

Navigation: React Navigation with a modular screen design.

State management: Zustand store with unit tests for each function.

Gamification: Custom logic for points, streaks, and badge rewards.

Maps: Integrated campus map with geolocation markers.

Dev process: Feature branches, ≤300 lines per PR, and Conventional Commits.

Testing: Every function unit-tested with Jest; every PR included one big integration test.

Challenges we ran into

Staying under 300 lines per pull request while moving fast in a hackathon setting.

Ensuring geolocation and mapping worked consistently across iOS, Android, and web.

Mocking vendor data in a way that can later plug into a real backend.

Balancing feature ambition (AR overlays, 3D trucks) with MVP deliverables.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Shipped a fully working MVP that runs on web and mobile.

Created a gamification system that actually feels fun and keeps users engaged.

Designed the project around equity by design — halal certification is built into the discovery flow.

Kept our codebase clean and test-driven under tight time constraints.

What we learned

How to manage scope creep by breaking work into small, testable feature branches.

How gamification mechanics (points, streaks, badges) can increase retention even in a utility app.

The importance of developer discipline — tests, PR limits, and commit standards saved us time in the long run.

How to collaborate effectively on a shared Expo project in a high-pressure hackathon environment.

What's next for HalalEats

Live vendor onboarding: Let truck owners claim their profile, mark halal status, and upload menus.

Payments integration: Enable in-app ordering with pay-at-truck or mobile pay options.

Advanced features: AR overlays to view trucks through the camera, 3D truck models, and AI calorie estimators.

Scalability: Expand beyond Temple and Drexel to other campuses and city hotspots.

Community features: Food challenges, friend leaderboards, and vendor shoutouts.

Built With

• expo.io
• jest
• node.js
• react-native
• typescript
• zustand