S-Pears

Every day at the end of the day, tons of food not sold are thrown away by restaurants and cafes around the globe. With our app, anyone can recruit and locate these places to feed those in need.

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Inspiration

A general population cannot lead a healthy lifestyle if they experience food insecurity, and the population is not sustainable if a large amount of food is wasted. Narrowing in on these problems, we sought to create a solution that will allow anyone to gain access to a free meal, reducing food waste in the process.

What it does

Once users register an account (and allow location permissions), they can log in to view the restaurants in their city from our database, on a map. Then they have the option to submit a new location by entering its name, zip code, city, and optionally, if has healthy and vegan options. This new location will then be added as a marker to the map.

How we built it

We built and designed it on Android Studio with Java, using firebase and multiple google APIs in the process.

Challenges we ran into

  • We could not recruit as many team members as we would have liked before the project started.
  • Lost communication with a former teammate so parts like UI had to be completed last minute by the other two members.
  • A team member had never used Android Studio before.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • One teammate was able to teach the other a significant amount of Android Studio.
  • The project was completed with two people, even though we planned it with three members in mind.

What we learned

  • We learned how to effectively use the Geocoder and Google Places APIs.
  • We learned how to conceptualize a project from start to finish in 24 hours.
  • We learned how to re-evaluate, re-strategize, and re-assign tasks in the sudden absence of a team member.

What's next for S-Pears

S-Pears planned on adding the following features next:

  • Adapt the app to iOS and Web.
  • A verification system that works with communication with the owners of the establishments to verify that they are giving meals out at the end of the day.
  • Registered users can review or rate places.
  • Popup locations made by members of the general public looking to give away meals.
  • Applying this framework to shelters and low-income housing.
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