Meal Prep Pro

Inspiration

We have never really paid attention to our daily food intake, which can lead to unhealthy eating habits. After finding out that on top of our own families, others struggle with eating at home and planning meals for the week, we wanted to create an app that would benefit people like us. We aim to empower others to take control of and improve their eating habits.

What it does

Our app allows users to schedule and prepare meals for the upcoming week by searching a large database of recipes and nutritional information. Users can also favorite meals to make them easier to find in the favorites tab and add them to the schedule.

How we built it

We researched and considered various frameworks to build our app but ultimately decided to use React Native because it allowed us to code a mobile app using JavaScript, which we are both most familiar with. To test the app, we used Expo, an open-source platform designed for developing and testing React Native apps. We would run Expo on our computers, and it provided us with a QR code to scan and run the app on our phones. Expo proved to be an excellent tool for testing and debugging our app.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was learning to use React Native since neither of us was familiar with the software. Additionally, we found it challenging to implement the Spoonacular API and connect the data from it to all of our app’s screens. It took many hours of YouTube videos and creating a sample weather app to understand the different components and syntax of the framework. However, with practice and perseverance, we overcame this obstacle and started building our desired mobile application.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Developing an app with advanced software like React Native was a challenging yet rewarding experience. A few weeks prior, neither of us could have done anything with React Native, but we were motivated to learn how to use it and eventually were capable of creating this app. We had an immense feeling of accomplishment after creating the app because of the countless hours of dedication it took to develop.

What we learned

One major takeaway was that developing an app takes a lot of dedication and time. We spent multiple hours using trial and error to debug specific issues. However, we learned we have the resiliency and knowledge to build off of to take our app-developing skills to the next level. Another takeaway is that collaboration is critical to the development process. Working with each other and making sure we were on the same page with what changes we were making was an essential factor in our success, especially when we were able to collaborate in person.

What's next for Meal Prep Pro

In the future, we aim to integrate more features to enhance the app's functionality and usability, such as meal presets and the ability to conduct filtered searches when searching for recipes. Currently, the Spoonacular API provides an extensive catalog of meals but requires users to click on a provided link to access specific information about each meal outside the app. Eventually, we want all the nutritional information and data inside the app for a seamless user experience. In addition, we would like to enhance several aspects of the UI, including a popup for adding meals to specific days, buttons to remove meals from the calendar and favorites page, and an info button that would hold more information about each recipe within the app. We also want to add a feature that allows the user to add their recipes to the app; that way, they can use their recipes and still plan all their meals in one place.

Built With

• javascript
• react-native
• redux
• spoonacular(api)