Inspiration
We wanted to solve an accessibility issue regarding diet and nutrition. Many people may find it time consuming to think of recipes to cook based off what they have available to them at home. That's where LunchBox comes in with its camera and Recipe API integration to come up with a variety of different recipes at the touch of a button.
What it does
LunchBox is an IOS app used to find unique recipes based on the users current home ingredient selection! Just simply type in your current ingredients in the search bar... AND BOOM! Just like that LunchBox will find you dozens of different recipes based on your search query. Its just that simple!
How we built it
Using expo, an open-source framework that helps developers build apps for Android, iOS, and the web using React Native. We constructed a UI that includes a search bar and a camera feature as well. We used a recipe search API from Edamam to prompt the user to search an ingredient, using the query we sent triggered an input into the API and fetched a list of recipes and their names in return.
Challenges we ran into
We had several struggles trying to get our camera feature to work, the goal was to use an llm to take a picture of a fridge and to return a string of ingredients. Using Baml we got this seperate piece of code to work but we could not find a way to connect this code file to our main project. So we ended up repurposing our camera feature.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
This was our first time creating an a mobile application. We are proud to get a somewhat functioning app that provides a desired outcome. We never used React before and we produced an entire application, we are very proud of this.
What we learned
We learned a lot about React Native and app development. There is a lot of ways to integrate a UI and having a functioning backend. We learned the importance of a good design plan, as we ran into some struggles when implementing initial design plans.
What's next for LunchBox
We plan to each work on the project more independently. Potential updates may include incorporating an AI Chef/ Assistant to provide step-by-step guidance when cooking recipes. Additionally, users should be able to create accounts and store personal favourite recipes and share them across their network. We also want to integrate the camera feature to fulfill its original purpose.
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