LetsGetLunch

Inspiration

The APP was built bearing the problem of mental health at the back of our mind. At a time when so many students around the campus tend to grab and go, viewing eating as just another task to complete, we hope to encourage them to slow down and regard having a meal as a bonding time. Talking with others is always a way to distress and it allows us to know that there are other people, even strangers, who are willing to care about you and give you company.

What it does

Our APP ---- LetsGetLunch! encourages students at Penn to meet up with their peers during meal time to have a nice conversation with whom who they might have never met before. It enables them to locate friends near them as well. The user can see lunch openings around his/her location, and update the map by selecting a location on the map and input contact information. There is also a history page that allows you to see past lunching history and their ratings.

How we built it

We built the app using Android Studio within 10 hours. We incorporated the Google Maps API to locate the user's location and show current openings.

Challenges we ran into

Both of us are beginners of Android Development and it is the first time we are using Android Studio. We took the first hour to get familiar with the structure of the studio and how all the files interacted with each other. We had a lot of ideas we wanted to implement but given the time cap and technical difficulties, we tried our best to present the APP with the skill set we have.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We feel like by building this app we are addressing the needs of many Penn students. We'd like to promote work-eat-social balance among Penn students by giving them chance to eat with someone.

What we learned

It was a really rewarding experience to get our first taste of APP development using Android Studio. We really got a sense of how the xml and java interacted with each other. We also became familiar with embedding Google Maps into Android App and had close interaction with API.

What's next for LetsGetLunch

Add more functions to the app such as friending, inviting, and messaging. Eventually we want to launch it on Google Play.