DakaExchange

Uber, but instead of people looking for drivers, its upperclassmen looking for freshmen meal swipes

Comment

Inspiration

In our team, we have three freshmen. As it was our first time going to college, we all made the mistake of buying a more-than-necessary meal plan. What we didn't realize, however, was that, as a WPI student, actually eating all of your meals was a luxury.

That means that we all had a bunch of meals that we couldn't finish, but had already paid for. We also had a bunch of upper classmen friends who would end up buying a meal from the campus center or a swipe into Daka (our mess hall) from anywhere to $7 - $10 per meal.

Then the idea hit us. Why isn't there a way to auction off unused meal swipes to upper classmen? If freshmen could meal swipes for even $5, that would be $5 that they would have lost normally, as they already paid for their meal plan. For upperclassmen, a $5 meal is a steal for on campus food anywhere, thus yielding a win-win solution for everybody.

What it does

It is online marketplace application, in which a user can type in a time, and it will show all other students selling swipes at the time. After you buy a swipe, it will alert the seller that you would like to buy a swipe, and then after you meet up, and he/she swipes you in, your payment will go through.

How we built it

We built the backend with Python and Flask, with the frontend being HTML/JS, with a Bootcamp framework.

Challenges we ran into

We all were touching web development after a really long time, and it took us nearly a day just to get the rust off. Additionally, in the last 6 hours, we had a weird bug in which the database was actually changing the values inside of it, which caused an unnecessary complication in the whole process.

We also had a big issue with the notification system, because we needed a way to open a pipeline between a client and a server on a new connection, and maintain that pipeline even as the user navigates the site.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Push notifications for when someone wants to buy a swipe
  • We have the menu for the mess hall for each day
  • We built a secure login server in just 4 or so hours

What we learned

  • No more front end. Ever. Ever
  • What that being said, BootStrap was a savoir
  • After you learn Flask, building a service with Flask and Python is actually a lot less painful than with other methods
  • Don't do GUIs in Java

What's next for DakaExchange

  • Mobile App
  • Venmo integration
  • Geo-fencing
  • Better UI
Share this project:

Updates