In the introduction to InnovateIT, David Ecker described one of the problems in our Stony Brook community. Despite the fact that Stony Brook University has a food pantry with a surplus of donations, many Stony Brook students do not visit the food pantry, and end up going hungry instead. David theorized that this was caused by the social stigma of visiting the food pantry, as well as possibly the physical effort of traveling across campus to do so.
In order to solve this problem, we wanted to create a system that would make it easier for students to accept the food that is available. We created an app that allows students to order food directly from their phones, providing any necessary information that the food pantry might need from the convenience of their dorm rooms. Then they could select the campus mailroom that is closest to their dorm. Packages could be picked up from the food pantry and delivered along with the rest of the packages Stony Brook students receive. Then, students can go down to their closest mailroom and pick up the food pantry package as if it was any other package, thus removing the social stigma and difficulty from the process.
We also wanted to make it easier to customize the order from the food pantry. When physically visiting the food pantry, certain trades can always be made - for example, two granola bars for one box of cereal. As such, we wanted the app to allow such customization from the start. We wanted to allow the food pantry to assign "point" values to each item - in the previous example, if a granola bar was worth 1 point, then cereal would be worth 2. Each student would have a daily point limit for their package, and could select items up to the limit. The app should allow users to select and de-select items and display how many points the user has left. Items should go gray when the user does not have enough points left to select them.
To accomplish this, we all had to learn Android Studio for app development, as none of us had ever built an app before. We played around and watched tutorials until we managed to create a functioning Android app. We learned how to move between the different screens, create drop-down menus, and select items from a list, among many other things.
We hope to get in contact with Stony Brook Food Pantry and work with them to develop this into a fully functioning app that Stony Brook students will be able to use. We hope to create a way for them to update the point values and kinds of items as necessary in the future.
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