Inspiration
Women experience fluctuations in energy, mood, and physical well-being throughout their menstrual cycle. Given hormonal changes can significantly impact daily life, we felt it would be good to have a tool that empowers women to understand and embrace these changes by providing tailored lifestyle and dietary recommendations.
What it does
On top of helping women keep track of their menstrual cycles, this app provides dietary recommendations and exercise/lifestyle tips to allow women to stay in sync with their body's natural rhythms and optimize their health and well-being.
How we built it
We developed Sugar Plum as a web application using Next.js for full-stake development. We integrated a calendar API for cycle tracking and created a Mongo database to store data locally. For the nutrition and exercise recommendations, we build a chat bot using OpenAI to based on scientific research. The app uses machine learning algorithms to personalize suggestions based on user input and cycle patterns.
Challenges we ran into
We were originally building a mobile app, which all of us are new to. After facing significant challenges there, we pivoted to a web application. Further, while attempting to build this and collaborate asynchronously, we ended up with lots of merge conflicts and our code broke several times! Also, the WiFi at the venue was not great, and that was a major inconvenience.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We overcame the issues by hopping on a call and debugging together, and doing peer programming sessions. Finally, given most of the team are first-time hackers, we're proud we put ourselves out there and participated in something we weren't comfortable with.
What we learned
- Hacking is fun!
- The importance of flexibility and pivoting when faced with obstacles
- How to quickly research and synthesize scientific information into practical advice
- Collaborative problem-solving and effective team communication
What's next for Sugar Plum
- We want to train the AI model better so that it gives more relevant suggestions that are backed by research.
- We will want to make the application cross-compatible on multiple devices.
- Plenty of UI improvements!
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