Voulez-Vous Makan Avec Moi, Ce Soir?

This is a Telegram bot that helps to arrange an ideal/breakfast timing for a group of friends who stay in hostel and eat in dining halls together.

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Story of My Project: Voulez-vous Makan Avec Moi, Ce Soir?

Inspiration

The inspiration for Voulez-vous Makan Avec Moi, Ce Soir? came from a simple yet relatable hostel-life challenge: coordinating meal timings with friends. With everyone juggling different lesson schedules and commitments, finding a common time to eat together often became a guessing game. I wanted to create a solution that would make this process seamless, efficient, and even enjoyable.

What It Does

The Telegram bot helps a group of friends coordinate their meal timings effortlessly. By allowing users to input their available meal times, the bot cross-references the data and provides suggestions for when the group can eat together. It also keeps track of participants and their responses, making it easy to see who’s joining and when.

How We Built It

The bot was developed using Python, leveraging the Telegram Bot API for communication. I hosted the bot on an AWS EC2 instance, ensuring it runs continuously and reliably.

The logic for coordinating meal timings was designed to be user-friendly and flexible, with features like automatic data clearing at midnight to ensure the bot stays relevant and clutter-free.

Challenges We Ran Into

  • Managing Timezones: Ensuring the bot handled time consistently, especially with the server on UTC, was a tricky aspect of the implementation.
  • Automation on AWS: Setting up automated tasks, such as clearing data daily, required configuring cron jobs within a virtual environment.
  • Version Control and Deployment: Keeping the bot updated while ensuring the instance didn’t accidentally expose sensitive files like .env or .pem was a lesson in careful Git management.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

  • End-to-End Deployment: From coding the bot to deploying it on AWS, this project was a full-stack experience that I’m proud of.
  • Simplifying Group Coordination: The bot has genuinely solved a real-life problem for me and my friends, which makes it deeply satisfying.
  • Learning New Skills: Hosting on AWS, configuring cron jobs, and improving Git practices were all significant personal milestones during this project.

What We Learned

  • Effective Hosting: I learned how to use AWS EC2 for hosting projects and ensuring they run reliably.
  • Importance of Security: Managing sensitive files like .env and .pem taught me how crucial it is to prioritize security in development workflows.
  • Creation of a Telegram Bot from scratch: I learned how to create a working Telegram bot in a modular manner, that I can now apply in future projects!

What's Next for Voulez-vous Makan Avec Moi, Ce Soir?

The project has great potential for further enhancements:

  • Expanded Features: Adding reminders for meal times or even integrating other campus facilities like pantry or laundry bookings.
  • Friend Group Customization: Allowing users to create and manage multiple groups within the bot.
  • Data Visualization: Introducing analytics on meal trends and participation rates over time.
  • Scalability: Making the bot accessible to larger communities beyond just my immediate circle of friends.

Voulez-vous Makan Avec Moi, Ce Soir? started as a way to make life easier for my friends and me, and it’s grown into something that showcases my technical skills while solving a real problem. I'm excited about the possibilities ahead!

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