PrepPal

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  Logo

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  Home Page

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  Find New Recipes Tab

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  Find New Recipes Tab Filters (There is more)

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  Quick Meals Tab

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  Quick Meals Tab Filters

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  Bmi calculator

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  Diet plan (includes Cut, Bulk and Normal)

Inspiration

During lunch, when Tody, a senior, was telling us how it was difficult to get good-quality recipes from Play Store or App Store apps where most of which were paid and filled with ads and that this would be a problem in college, we realized the potential to create PrepPal. We also realized the need to learn how to cook when we left for college. We wanted to eliminate the continuous internet searching for recipes and subscription fees of cooking applications. We were inspired by this idea to create an app that would be capable of suggesting recipes according to available ingredients and dietary needs. In this manner, it would also prevent food waste while providing healthy and economical meal suggestions to students and young working individuals.

What it does

PrepPal has multiple features, including recipe finding, diet plans, and quick meals. Let’s break this down into parts. First, Recipe Finding = There is a dedicated tab for finding recipes where users can explore meals from different cuisines and filter them based on dietary preferences such as vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, spicy, beef, pork, and more. For example, if you search for "pizza," you will get diverse types like New York-style, Italian-style, and many others. Second, Diet Plans = Our app can calculate BMI and provide diet plans accordingly. If a user has a low BMI, they will receive a bulking plan with recommendations to eat more and focus on strength training. If a user has a high BMI, they will receive a cutting plan with specific meal suggestions for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to help manage their weight, if not they get a normal diet plan, so they do not gain and lose weight. Finally, quick Meals = This section features meals that can be prepared quickly, including no-cook options (requiring no oven or stove) like a PB&J sandwich or meals that take less than 10 minutes to prepare. Users can also filter quick meals based on calorie count and protein grams to fit their dietary goals.

How we built it

We built this app using Glide and Bubble. First, we organized all the data in an Excel sheet. After that, we created a Glide workbook and added the data there. Once we had the base, we used Glide’s features to make the app. Then, we converted the PWA into an APK and integrated it with Bubble to add more features like BMI calculations. Finally, we generated the final APK and turn it in.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was time management due to differing academic schedules for everyone because everyone is in different grade levels and We had commitments, such as SAT prep and college essays. Balancing our personal responsibilities with app development was difficult. Additionally, technical challenges in integrating all the features, especially the filtering system and recipe scraping, required extensive troubleshooting. Despite these obstacles, we kept strong communication to push through and meet our deadlines.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are extremely proud of how we gathered data without data scraping and how we were able to effectively implement the filter system. This feature allows users to search for meals based on their diet types, like vegan, gluten-free, or low-calorie meals, and it significantly increases the usability of the app and personalizes the experience for each and every individual user. We are also pleased with the progress that we made in creating a diverse recipe database and getting the app to function effectively despite our strict development schedule.

What we learned

helped us learn how to break things into pieces like doing script, doing the app, gathering data etc. because we did not know data scraping, we expanded on our excel skills by working with large data. Additionally, we learned more about working with APIs, how data scraping, and organize large datasets, which will be useful in future tech projects.

What's next for PrepPal

If we had more time, we would focus on expanding the recipe database through more extensive data scraping and incorporating AI for personalized meal planning. We would also add multi-language support to make the app accessible to a global audience. Additionally, we plan to refine the user interface and include more images for a better user experience.

Built With

• bubble
• glide