Mammoth ReServe

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Inspiration:

Every day, Amherst College Dining Services prepares food for thousands of students, and, like most campuses, a significant portion of it becomes leftover and gets thrown away, despite careful planning. Meanwhile, local food banks, institutions like NotBreadAlone, mutual-aid groups, and students facing food insecurity are always in need of ready-to-eat meals.

We realized we could connect these two realities. What if leftover food never became waste, and instead went directly to people who need it? That idea became Mammoth ReServe, a fast, safe, and intelligent way for dining halls to share their surplus food with the community.

What it does

Mammoth ReServe is a platform that enables the Amherst College Dining Hall to instantly notify food banks, student groups, and mutual aid organizations whenever surplus food is available.

It provides: Real-time alerts when new food is ready for pickup. AI-powered food recognition to estimate the type and quantity of surplus. Automatic environmental impact metrics (meals saved, lbs of food not wasted). A compliance-aware checklist ensuring donations meet food safety regulations. Transparent logs for accountability and food safety reporting.

In short: Mammoth ReServe turns potential waste into meals, automatically and safely.

How we built it

We used AI-assisted tools such as Google AI Studio and GitHub Copilot to rapidly prototype, iterate, and bring our ideas to life within the short hackathon timeframe. This allowed us to quickly build out both the frontend and backend of Mammoth ReServe:

Front-end:

React 19 + TypeScript 5.8 for a typed component architecture, powering the donation form, live feed, and impact dashboard. Vite 6 for fast development and instant HMR. Tailwind CSS (CDN) for utility-based styling with a custom Amherst-themed palette.

Back-end & AI

Node.js + Express 4 to expose secure API routes and handle image uploads. Gemini 2.5 Flash API for server-side AI: analyzing food photos, estimating portions, identifying food types, and generating sustainability metrics. The backend stores structured donation data and returns AI-enhanced results to the front-end for real-time display.

Challenges we ran into

Food safety regulations are strict. We had to build features that ensure food is safe to donate. Estimating food quantity with precision from an image is a complex task. We had to experiment with multiple AI APIs and test several prompts to find the most effective ones. Coordinating real-time interaction between groups required careful back-end design. Designing a user-friendly system that is simple enough for dining staff during busy meal services, students, and food banks was a major UI/UX challenge. Ensuring the model didn't misidentify food required constraints and multiple tests. Every obstacle made the system more robust.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We created a comprehensive donation workflow that connects students, the dining hall, and local institutions. Our AI can recognize food types and approximate servings, enabling real sustainability reporting. We designed an attractive brand and logo: Mammoth ReServe, inspired by Amherst's mascot. Built a system that is feasible for real deployment at Amherst College. Created a tool that can genuinely reduce food waste and support the local community.

What we learned

How to combine AI, sustainability metrics, and real-world food safety laws into a single functional platform. Designing for real users (such as dining staff, food banks, and students) requires simplicity over complexity. The importance of clear communication between front-end, back-end, and AI components. How significant the impact of food waste can be, saving even a few trays per day adds up to massive food waste reductions. How hard it can be to implement a project in such a short time, as bugs come up frequently And most importantly, that technology can solve real social problems when used with passion.

What's next for Mammoth ReServe

We're excited to continue developing the platform. Next steps include:

A mobile app for faster on-the-go notifications Connection with gmail and SMS APIs to alert users about the information new donations, and other information AI that predicts surplus so dining services can reduce overproduction proactively Partnerships with local food banks and mutual-aid groups for pilot testing at Amherst College Expansion to other Five College campuses QR-based pickup validation so organizations can check in quickly

Ultimately, we want Mammoth ReServe to become a campus-wide sustainability tool that ensures no good food ever goes to waste.