Inspiration
Sometimes, we all just have one of those days. Maybe you didn't make any plans and now you're sitting alone, eating lunch by yourself. Maybe it's a new semester of college in a new place, and you feel out of place and isolated. While the solution (make friends!) seems obvious enough, it's not always easy to approach people, and sometimes, we just don't have the energy to socialize on top of heavy course loads and extracurriculars.
What it does
meet2eat is a website that makes it easy to spontaneously schedule a dinner with someone new. All you have to do is provide your name and when you're available, and meet2eat will randomly choose a dining hall setting and pair you with someone. Because meet2eat forgoes creating a profile, it's more convenient and places less social pressure on the user. Additionally, because meet2eat only lets users schedule a meal on the same day, meet2eat is very noncommittal. At its heart, meet2eat helps people across all years and backgrounds connect and hopefully, spark meaningful conversations and relationships. meet2eat is not only for university students--it can also connect the elderly with university students for a meal, as loneliness is similarly a big issue for elderly people in nursing homes. University students can have a meal with the elderly and learn from them while earning service hours.
How we built it
This web app was built using React as a front end and Flask as a back end.
Challenges we ran into
We ran into some challenges with connecting front end with the back end, and using the REST API to transfer data between the two portions
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Hashing out the structure, and learning new frameworks on the fly!
What we learned
We learned how to leverage technology to help solve a growing problem on university campuses.
What's next for meet2eat
Being able to provide seating options by including table reservations and live updates on seat availability.
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