MunchMatch

Logo
Host Creation
Restaurant Swiping
Match Results

Inspiration

Our inspiration came from the very real and pressing issue of choosing where to eat as a group. Everyone has experienced the endless back-and-forth that occurs when a group of indecisive friends try to decide on a restaurant. We wanted to create a solution that not only makes this process effortless but also fun and engaging for everyone involved.

What it does

MunchMatch simplifies the dining decision-making process for groups by matching their collective preferences with local dining options. Users input their individual preferences, dietary restrictions, and budget, and our app does the rest — compiling a list of restaurant matches that satisfy the group's criteria. Its democracy meets gastronomy, ensuring that the final choice is one that everyone can get excited about.

How we built it

We built MunchMatch using a combination of React Native for cross-platform support to deploy on both iOS and Android platforms, and Node.js and Express/MongoDB for the backend, which handles user data and preferences and integrates with various APIs for real-time data. We focused on a seamless and intuitive UI/UX to make the process as straightforward as possible.

Challenges we ran into

As with any great hack, there was no shortage of challenges we ran into as we progressed throughout the hackathon. We spent a long time in the ideation phase (around 24 hours!) going back and forth between ideas we'd want to work on and challenges we were interested in. Once we did begin work, the biggest challenges were setting up all our different environments to work with the code, learning new languages and frameworks in the time we had left, working with the Google Maps API, and integrating - connecting the back and front end.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to create a functional and good-looking app in the short amount of time we had to code, as well as work on mobile development and languages that we were not familiar with before. We also had a great time hacking, meeting new people, and attending workshops!

What's next for MunchMatch

There are endless possibilities for future development - we could improve the app itself, particularly the UI and UX to make it more functional and easier to use. We can also add the ability to save restaurants and specify cuisines and preferences that a user may have, as well as potential allergies. The other route we could go down is integration within other apps, specifically delivery apps when a large number of people may be delivering food or create extensions for group messaging platforms such as iMessage or WhatsApp that may further increase the number of people our app helps.