Halls Market

We students like to eat, but sometimes we buy too much. You no longer need to worry about the food you won't finish. With our app, you sell food to hungry bidders with all proceeds going to charity.

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Inspiration

Many students pick up slightly too much food when they go for their weekly shop. This excess food often ends up in the bin. Not only is this financially wasteful but this food could be exactly what other students needed.

With Halls Market, we are creating a marketplace for food, with proceeds going to charity.

What it does

As a student, you create an account and list your surplus fruits, vegetables, ready meals, smoothies etc. for a subsidised rate. Other students in your accommodation can then see all the food available and buy it through their account to make sure it doesn't go to waste :)

Your personalised order history shows you what you have bought and sold. This way you know exactly how much food and money you have saved.

How we built it

We built this mobile app using Java and Android Studio with RealTime Firebase as our database. We started by developing a feasible roadmap for 24 hours. Our aim was to ensure we had sufficient functionality and a beautiful interface for our students.

Over the course of the 24 hours, we focussed heavily on the backend and handling requests as well as making sure our design was intuitive and simple.

Challenges we ran into

Firebase was a steep learning curve and it took us many hours to interact with the data. Also, designing the app was difficult within the time frame but we are happy with the first iteration of the design.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

In the space of 24 hours we learnt how to create Android apps with Android Studio and use Firebase, the majority of our team had no prior experience with Android development. We are proud of our perseverance and the final product we have created.

What we learned

It is important to take breaks and play to everyone's strengths. Also, it is key to work smart and listen to everyone's ideas, since our app is the product of ideas from multiple team members.

What's next for Halls Market

  • Based on the food available in our marketplace we will generate recipes associated with each food item and collate items for the same recipes. This will help students with meal planning or be ideal for flats who would like to cook together!

  • To help people who are self isolating, our aim will be to add the option to drop off food to the rooms of self isolating students.

  • We also want to have some image recognition so students can take pictures of their food and it automatically creates a post with expiry date, name, etc.

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