Surplus Signal

Inspiration

Usable food is wasted when donors and suitable recipients cannot connect before the deadline. Surplus Signal explores faster, more feasible food-rescue decisions.

What it does

A local-first food-surplus dispatcher with fictional donor and recipient data. Users can create offers and recipients, inspect transparent eligibility and scores, simulate partial allocations, and track demo records with CSV/JSON exports. It checks allergens, food categories, capacity, expiry and straight-line proximity. An offline-capable responsive interface and schematic network overview are included.

How we built it

Built with HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript ES modules, SVG, browser localStorage, and service workers. A deterministic matching engine uses haversine distance, strict eligibility gates and a score combining urgency, priority, capacity fit and distance. Eight automated Node.js tests validate key rules. All organizations and allocations are simulated.

Challenges

We separated hard safety/feasibility gates from soft scoring so disallowed allergen combinations, insufficient capacity or inadequate time cannot be ranked as viable. We also clearly distinguish simulated assignments from real-world impact.

Accomplishments

Working end-to-end demo of matching, inventory creation, partial simulated assignment, updates to availability and recipient capacity, local logging and exports. Source code and reproducible tests are public.

What's next

Pilot with verified partners, implement real pickup confirmation and food handling checks, authenticated accounts, real route distances, secure data storage, and validated emissions impact measurement.

Rethinking Waste: Problem and measurement

Edible surplus food goes to waste when available donations and suitable recipients cannot be coordinated before expiry. Surplus Signal prioritizes feasible offers by category, allergen constraints, available time, distance and recipient capacity. In a real pilot we would measure kilograms successfully collected and safely accepted divided by total kilograms offered, median time-to-match, pickup completion rates, spoilage, and transport distance per kg delivered. Current figures and organizations are fictional; no real food diversion or environmental savings are claimed.

Project code

https://github.com/samertall/tools/tree/main/surplus-signal-arbiter-v1

Demo walkthrough

Watch the 2:35 public narrated demo: https://youtu.be/h0UvTidwVCM . It shows actual recorded browser screens and interactions in the working local application, including inventory, a 3 kg simulated allocation, and the updated impact report. All organizations and outcomes are fictional.

AI assistance

AI-assisted tools supported prototyping, code drafting, and narration production. The deployed matching logic itself is a deterministic JavaScript algorithm, not an AI service. The feature claims are constrained to the demo and tests; no live food donations were arranged.

Built With

• css3
• html5
• javascript
• localstorage
• node.js
• service-worker
• svg