Inspiration
We came up with the idea for UCI Eats thanks to our experiences at Brandywine and the Anteatery. In this first quarter of our freshman year, we tried many different foods. Some were good and some were not as great, but it was impossible to tell beforehand. Now, with UCI Eats, students can see previous students' opinions on the different foods.
What it does
UCI Eats is a simple website that allows users to input ratings from 1-5 on the dining hall foods here at UCI and view the average ratings from previous users.
How we built it
To build UCI Eats, we had to first design the layout of each screen of the site. We knew our target demographic would be students trying to quickly decide which meal was worth having at the dining hall for the day, so we wanted to keep the layout as simple as possible. Then, we split into two teams, with the front end attempting to recreate our envisioned design and the backend team devising a way to store and calculate the ratings from the users.
Challenges we ran into
Our biggest challenge was connecting the front end to the back end. As a very young coding team, we had very little prior experience in either side of web development. Much of our time was spent researching how to transfer data back and forth.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud to have connected the front end to the back end and successfully incorporated the core functionality of the website.
What we learned
As a young team, we learned an incredible amount. We spent many hours studying HTML, CSS, and Javascript. We spent even more learning about how the servers work. Lastly, we better learned how to operate as a team. We created a clear plan, split off into teams, and came back together with a cohesive project.
What's next for UCI Eats
UCI Eats is clearly not in its final state. We would love to put more hours into simplifying and cleaning up the design of the website. We also plan to add the capability for users to input their own comments on each dish, as well as images of their food.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.