SwampSnacks

💡Inspiration

Life at UF can get overwhelming fast, with students and faculty alike struggling to find eateries that fit their day-to-day preferences and needs.

Standard map apps like Google Maps or Yelp fail to take campus life into consideration. They can't answer hyper-specific student queries like: "I have 12 minutes between classes, $7 in my bank account, and I'm stuck near the Reitz Union."

To combat this, we developed SwampSnacks: an AI assistant that recommends restaurants around Gainesville and campus, regardless of how specific the constraints may be!

🍽️What it does

SwampSnacks is an AI-powered dining recommender designed specifically for the UF and Gainesville community.

• Natural Language Queries: Students can type exactly what they’re feeling or experiencing (e.g., "Need vegan options near Midtown before game day starts").
• Context-Aware Recommendations: SwampSnacks cross-references student prompts with an curated local database of Gainesville eateries, campus dining, and classic staples.
• Campus-Smart Logistics: It provides not just restaurant names, but realistic transit/walking times from major UF landmarks, estimated prices, and campus-specific vibes.

🛠️How we built it

As this was the first hackathon for our entire team, we aimed to use a familiar tech stack that we could all contribute towards. We chose to hardcode our dataset in a JSON file that featured dining locations, price tiers, proximity tags, etc.

🚧Challenges we ran into

• Streamlit Syntax - As a rookie team, none of us have ever used Streamlit to develop applications before! As a result, we had to learn as we went, spending hours to just understand the basics.
• Managing the Github Repository & Version Control - Since we had 0 experience utilizing GitHub, we struggled with Git merge conflicts, learning the basics of version control as we went.
• Finding Images - We initially wanted to use Google Places API to get the photos for our Results page. This proved to be a challenge for us, resulting in the use of stock images and hand-taken photos instead.

🏆Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Implementing Gemini into our project.
• Working with various file types.
• Learning how to use Git and Github to collaborate in a team setting.
• Deploying our first project with a working demo!

📚What we learned

• AI & API integration.
• Designing a UI & user flow.
• Implementing a Framework into our project.
• Team collaboration while under pressure.

🐊What's next for SwampSnacks

• Live Campus Crowding Integration: Adding real-time crowd metrics/wait times.
• Interactive Map Integration: Embedding live Google Maps route visualizers into our Streamlit interface to provide directions.
• Mobile Integration: Transition from a Streamlit interface to a mobile-friendly application.

Built With

• flaskapi
• geminiapi
• python
• streamlit