my_fridgespace camera
Realtime DataBase
barcode scanner and code

Inspiration

Pantry Pal 1.0, a to-do list for your pantry. Adrian worked on this for a CS class he took last year, so this was our original inspiration.

What it does

Pantry Pal 2.0 is a system that keeps a database of items. This prevents users from buying items they already have, and can help users spend their money wisely at supermarkets. In addition, there is a social media component which allows users to share pictures of the inside of their fridge on the my_fridgespace platform, making it fun and excting!

How we built it

We have two distinct components: the barcode scanner + software logic & the companion app. The barcode scanner and logic was built with a raspi camera, combined with the Pyzbar python library. To match barcodes with items, and get categories of the items from them, we used playwright (an automated browser often used for web scraping) combined with ChatGPT. For the companion app, we used the MIT App Inventor which allowed us to relatively smoothly create an Android app that could make queries to the Firebase app.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into major challenges trying to run Python on the Raspberry Pi due to version conflicts. Some difficulties were encountered creating a barcode-to-item barcode in-house "API" because we had to spoof the website into thinking our traffics weren't from automated browsers.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're very proud that we have real time tracking of barcodes. We considred having a shutter button for the barcodes, but this would be clunky so we engineered a solution which allowed us to continually capture images. We're also very proud of the companion app because of how well it displays the info from the database, and how it automatically updates when there are changes made to it! We're also proud of the social media idea we came up with, where we blended modern BeReal style "in-the-moment" posts with the traditionally feeds of social media.

What we learned

How to use real-time database (how to use the firebase API) How barcodes work How to develop on Raspi with python

What's next for Pantry Pal 2.0

improve the buzzer sounds upgrades to the social media components (my_fridgespace) currently cooking/using in the social media UI improvements Recipe/meal recommendations based on available ingredients