RiceDash

Hand drawn logo and and thumbnail!!!
Dasher Page
Main Menu
Ordering Food
Dasher To Order Map

Inspiration

For many Rice students, DoorDashing your favorite food from off campus is a luxury, only to indulge in on rare occasions. Food prices are high, and delivery to a dorm is completely out of the question. What if there was a better way to get food on campus, no matter your location, with no extra cost to your food?

What it does

Introducing RiceDash, a food delivery platform for Rice students, by Rice students. Want a late night snack, but you're too locked in on work? Create an order request and choose from your favorite serveries and restaurants around campus. A rice student will promptly deliver your order to wherever you are located. Want to make some extra cash? Scan the app for order requests near you, and dash that food to the poor hungry students on campus!

How we built it

Frontend: Next.js (App Router), React, Typescript for UI; Backend: Next.js API powered with PostgreSQL (Vercel); Authentication: NextAuth.js with Google or Github. Rice email required with Duo support for authentication; Maps & Location: Google Maps JS w. Distance Matrix APIs for live location selection, delivery tracking, and distance estimation; APIs: Geolocation API, Google Distance Matrix API for real-time location detection;

Challenges we ran into

Tuning APIs: Transferring accurate geolocation especially on a web app was difficult to do and required a bit of debugging; Authentication: Setting up Google OAuth sign-in to authorize only Rice University students was difficult at first; Databases: Setting up Vercel Postgres; Time Crunch: Creating a proper UI, functional backend, and APIs within 36 hours required careful planning for the most important features;

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Live Task Board: Every RiceDash user is able to add to a global task board accessible to all dashers. Rice Email Authentication: Prevents non-Rice-email signed in to access orders or dashes; Potential To Create More Student Jobs: Easily accessible dashing jobs to students; Google Map Integration: Calculates price of dashing order based on distance of order to target; Shows embedded map and distance of dasher to orders; Dynamic Orders: Allows the orderer to change the servery and their order items;

What we learned

Full-Stack Development, specifically in TypeScript, React.js, and Next.js; Use of APIs for additional features; Using and hosting a server with Versel and real time communication between clients and server; Teamwork and collaboration;

What's next for RiceDash

Implementation of thrid-party payment systems like Stripe.; Addition of more locations to order from (Specifically in Rice Village); Expansion into multiple colleges;

We all truly believe that RiceDash will make a positive change on this college campus. It creates multiple easily accessible jobs and simplifies the delivery of food. It has great potential to be scaled to multiple campuses as well.