Food Hero

Our Logo
Posting items
Viewing food posts in database
Viewing your posts
Removing Posts
Google Maps API in action

Inspiration

Food waste makes up about half of the average 1.5kg of waste disposed of by each household in Singapore daily. Our team found out that the cause of this food waste is largely due to leftover food either from supermarkets of bought by families being thrown out. To prevent this, we at kalilinux have devised a Telegram bot for people who are unable to finish their leftovers and those who would be in need of these foods.

What it does

Food Hero (Name of our bot) allows users to share their leftover food by posting it into the bot's database, and for users who would like the leftovers to retrieve it later on. Posters are required to add relevant information about the food, such as whether it contains allergens, or if it is halal, allowing our bot to appeal to people of all sorts of dietary restrictions. The bot runs on Python and utilises the python-telegram-bot library. To store data such as user information, food postings and user transactions, Food Hero uses SQLite Database tables. We also used the googlemaps API to create interactive maps, allowing for a seamless user experience.

We chose to use a telegram bot for this purpose as it is much more accessible on the fly, compared to a website or app which may require extra downloading and logging in.

Challenges We Faced

The time limit of 24 hours was a major challenge, as we did not have sufficient time to test all of our features, or implement all of features. However, we still managed to make all of the major features work while keeping user experience in mind, which we are proud of. Another challenge was the shortage of manpower. By having less members than most teams, we had to manage our time carefully and be extra productive in order to create a project of such complexity. Our inexperience was also a caveat, as it was our first time creating a telegram bot. In addition, we were not too familiar with implementing the GoogleMaps API or using SQLite databases in projects prior to the competition, resulting in us having to do extensive research during the project.